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Correlations are a profound part of our universe. When observing the universe, humans can never prove any facts about the universe. We can only establish corre

Correlations are a profound part of our universe. When observing the universe, humans can never prove any facts about the universe. We can only establish correlations. Correlations between events that occur in our universe is the furthest "truth" we can establish about the universe short of a full on proof. What this means is that nothing in the physical universe can be proven. Proof is the domain of maths and logic, correlations is the domain of science. Science cannot prove anything, it can only establish correlations and causations. The reason this occurs is because at any time in the future one can observe an event that contradicts a hypothesis. You can hypothesize that all birds have wings and observe 2 trillion birds with wings but you never know when one day you'll observe a bird without wings disproving your entire hypothesis. That is why nothing can be proven, you can only correlate things through observation. The other interesting part about correlation is what it isn't: Causation. People often talk about how correlation is not causation but people never talk about what causation is and how to establish it. If I can't empirically use correlation to establish causation how on earth is causation ever formally established? People rarely question this disconnect. The fact is, causation is rarely formally established but a method does exist and it's subtle. If I observe that whenever Bob flicks a switch the light comes on then I established that the light coming on is correlated with Bob flipping the switch. This is as far as I can go with just observation. To establish causation I must make myself both an observer and an entity that is part of the system itself. I have to take control and flip the switch randomly and observe that when I don't flip the switch nothing happens and when I do flip the switch the lights come on. By doing this I establish causation. To establish causation to higher and higher degrees I need to Cause (keyword) random events and make sure that a cause influences an effect AND absence of a cause and therefore absence of an effect occurs. Also note that establishing causation is not proof. At any point in time in the future I can flip the switch and the light may not come on which is contradictory evidence for causation. Causation in the statistical sense is like correlation, you establish it to a degree of confidence but you can never Prove that A caused B.

DavidSJ 6y ago
Note that there are ways to test causal hypotheses without intervening. For example, suppose we wish to test the hypothesis that smoking causes lung cancer via the main mechanism of tar buildup in the lungs, against the alternative hypothesis that smoking is correlated with lung cancer because of a gene that predisposes people to both smoking and lung cancer (this example comes from Judea Pearl’s Book of Why). If the former hypothesis is true, then we should see a correlation between smoking behavior and tar deposits, and we should also see a correlation between tar deposits and lung cancer even after controlling for smoking behavior. Composing the causal effects at each stage, we can then calculate the indirect causal effect of smoking on lung cancer. If this suffixes to explain the correlation, then that rules out the alternative genetic explanation for the correlation. Of course, we can always propose ad-hoc further hypotheses that complicate the analysis: maybe the correlation between smoking and tar deposits is itself non-causative, etc. This only goes to show that scientific inquiry must be done with judgment and with expert domain knowledge, testing plausible hypotheses in good faith. But that’s true for detecting mere correlations too — we can always doubt our instruments, or claim the data is a statistical fluke. And it’s true in randomized controlled trials: it’s conceivable we didn’t properly randomize, etc.
- DavidSJ 6y ago
  s/suffixes/suffices/
- DoctorOetker 6y ago
  I agree. For example no physicist pretends that any of the models of reality (newtonian physics, relativistic, quantum mechanics, ...) not even the latest models (say the standard model) are the Truth with a capital T. The absolutist picture of the comment you respond rely on the simplification that a model is either true or false (which is of course correct) but ignores the incredible success of abductive reasoning: the prior models can effectively correspond to the superceding models in the regimes that were explored previously while specifically disagree in a regime more recently explored or made accessible experimentally. This does typically correspond with errors / falsehoods in the prior model but they are typically concentrated in llmited prior false postulates that needed replacing. It also ignores the power of multimodal measurements where the same or other factors are measured with independent means. One of the most powerful assumptions is simply assuming no time travel is involved: my favorite example is post partum syndrome / suicides. If one creates a plot with a horizontal axis of relative time bins and a vertical axis of event counts then let the relative time of 0 represent time of giving birth, and for each mother that commits suicide as a function of say weeks since birth you increment the corresponding bin. Integrated over maternal suicides we observe that there is a background suicide rate (due to other reasons) and a childbirth related peak that falls off over time. This means that something(s) related to the time of childbirth is traumatizing. Obviously a maternal suicide does not cause childbirth a few weeks prior (assuming causation can not occur in reverse order), so while causation is hard to prove, it can be feasible to exclude hypothetical causation pathways. This still leaves the possibility of a prior event causing both: say the day of getting pregnant but this does not explain the maternal suicides of mothers that had shorter or longer duration pregnancies! The peak is more concentrated with respect to days since childbirth compared a broader smeared peak when plotted with respect to days since fertilization. The fact one can blind oneself of timing information, obviously frustrating cauation analysis, should not be construed as an impossibility proof to gradually tease out and map causation pathways. One of the characteristics of post partum trauma is "hallucinatory conceptions" etcetera. I find it very suspicious that I never find a paper documenting these prolonged "figments of imagination" into classes, with examples on each. Except for the rarely abused class of deliriates the other drugs (LSD, THC, ...) don't cause prolonged concrete hallucinations. Hence I do not believe any endogenous hormonal imbalance is causing these "strange ideas" of a fraction of the women that recently gave child birth. Such a trait would obviously be selected against and disappear. More likely is that a fraction of them experience one or more common types of trauma during child birth. This could be many things: cutting the genitalia, caesarian section, ... but I believe one of the main factors is the female orgasm during childbirth, the contractions to squeeze the baby out of the vagina. If a person is unaware of this fact and then becomes aware during child birth, this feels like lack of consent and thus rape (with obvious suicide statistics of its own), betrayal, the discovery of prior taboo and censorship, and incomprehension why the information doesn't flow back to the medical (and school) system in order to adapt and better prepare future mothers of this natural function of the female orgasm. Instead they get assigned a shrink who shrugs off their frustration as "figments of their imagination", and openly document it as such in the literature. And then we collectively act surprised when some of them commit suicide? How many children must lose their mother, how many fathers must lose their wife, how family members must lose a relative, ... before we realize that this is too high a cost for the implicitly supposed "benefit" of "in sanity we trust"? The original comment does have its merit in cautioning against causation analysis without any timing information whatsoever (sadly one of the most common analysis techniques), like correlatings between classes of people (smoker / non smoker) X (healthy / cancer). But I think it would be more constructive for these run of the mill "correlation is not causation" rants to point out the value of multimodal measurement: for example measuring tar in your example, or measuring timing information as in the example I gave.
mellosouls 6y ago
This (causation as correlation) revelation was highlighted by Hume and this and other work by him had profound influence on Kant (famously awaking him from his "dogmatic slumbers") and scientists like Darwin and Einstein - the latter obviously in a more healthy scientific age when those at the forefront of physics were not so disdainful of philosophers.
- danielam 6y ago
  If you mean Hume's skepticism toward causation, then all I can say is that, as with all things Hume, he is highly overrated. The presuppositions that his arguments rest on aren't even accepted by most people who, to steal from Stroud, bow reverentially at his feet. For instance, most who pay homage to Hume do not accept his severe restrictions vis-a-vis causality in the realm of perception. But it is precisely this crude imagist theory of perception that Hume grounds his arguments against the knowledge of causation in. (Which is not to dismiss your point about their being a kind of savagery and philosophical philistinism among scientists. This was certainly Feyerabend's view.)
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    I don't have time to delve into this (delving would be required as I don't have the knowledge on tap) and respond to it, but have upvoted anyway; whether I agree or disagree with this or some of your other comments, your eloquence is appreciated!
- Geminidog 6y ago
  A good analogy is geocentrism vs heliocentrism. Philosophy suffers from the same bias that promoted a geocentric view of the solar system. The idea that humanity and human thought and human culture is central. I believe this is where most of the disdain comes from. Yes philosophy has a lot to say about logic and science but then you get stuff like the philosophy of religion, education and of art which are purely human concepts unique to us.... similar to how the mating habits of the chimpanzee are unique to the chimpanzee it's easy to see a category error with philosophy. There is a dichotomy here and philosophy does not respect it, science and logic apply to both the human and the chimpanzee (whether the chimpanzee chooses to understand it or not) but art and religion and mating behavior do not cross this divide and is unique to each species. This is the main issue with philosophy, by placing the philosophy of religion on the same level as the philosophy of logic it is saying that human centric concepts are no different then universal concepts and that humans are the center of the universe.
arolihas 6y ago
Well yeah this is deduction vs induction

DavidSJ 6y ago

Note that there are ways to test causal hypotheses without intervening. For example, suppose we wish to test the hypothesis that smoking causes lung cancer via the main mechanism of tar buildup in the lungs, against the alternative hypothesis that smoking is correlated with lung cancer because of a gene that predisposes people to both smoking and lung cancer (this example comes from Judea Pearl’s Book of Why). If the former hypothesis is true, then we should see a correlation between smoking behavior and tar deposits, and we should also see a correlation between tar deposits and lung cancer even after controlling for smoking behavior. Composing the causal effects at each stage, we can then calculate the indirect causal effect of smoking on lung cancer. If this suffixes to explain the correlation, then that rules out the alternative genetic explanation for the correlation. Of course, we can always propose ad-hoc further hypotheses that complicate the analysis: maybe the correlation between smoking and tar deposits is itself non-causative, etc. This only goes to show that scientific inquiry must be done with judgment and with expert domain knowledge, testing plausible hypotheses in good faith. But that’s true for detecting mere correlations too — we can always doubt our instruments, or claim the data is a statistical fluke. And it’s true in randomized controlled trials: it’s conceivable we didn’t properly randomize, etc.

DavidSJ 6y ago
s/suffixes/suffices/
DoctorOetker 6y ago
I agree. For example no physicist pretends that any of the models of reality (newtonian physics, relativistic, quantum mechanics, ...) not even the latest models (say the standard model) are the Truth with a capital T. The absolutist picture of the comment you respond rely on the simplification that a model is either true or false (which is of course correct) but ignores the incredible success of abductive reasoning: the prior models can effectively correspond to the superceding models in the regimes that were explored previously while specifically disagree in a regime more recently explored or made accessible experimentally. This does typically correspond with errors / falsehoods in the prior model but they are typically concentrated in llmited prior false postulates that needed replacing. It also ignores the power of multimodal measurements where the same or other factors are measured with independent means. One of the most powerful assumptions is simply assuming no time travel is involved: my favorite example is post partum syndrome / suicides. If one creates a plot with a horizontal axis of relative time bins and a vertical axis of event counts then let the relative time of 0 represent time of giving birth, and for each mother that commits suicide as a function of say weeks since birth you increment the corresponding bin. Integrated over maternal suicides we observe that there is a background suicide rate (due to other reasons) and a childbirth related peak that falls off over time. This means that something(s) related to the time of childbirth is traumatizing. Obviously a maternal suicide does not cause childbirth a few weeks prior (assuming causation can not occur in reverse order), so while causation is hard to prove, it can be feasible to exclude hypothetical causation pathways. This still leaves the possibility of a prior event causing both: say the day of getting pregnant but this does not explain the maternal suicides of mothers that had shorter or longer duration pregnancies! The peak is more concentrated with respect to days since childbirth compared a broader smeared peak when plotted with respect to days since fertilization. The fact one can blind oneself of timing information, obviously frustrating cauation analysis, should not be construed as an impossibility proof to gradually tease out and map causation pathways. One of the characteristics of post partum trauma is "hallucinatory conceptions" etcetera. I find it very suspicious that I never find a paper documenting these prolonged "figments of imagination" into classes, with examples on each. Except for the rarely abused class of deliriates the other drugs (LSD, THC, ...) don't cause prolonged concrete hallucinations. Hence I do not believe any endogenous hormonal imbalance is causing these "strange ideas" of a fraction of the women that recently gave child birth. Such a trait would obviously be selected against and disappear. More likely is that a fraction of them experience one or more common types of trauma during child birth. This could be many things: cutting the genitalia, caesarian section, ... but I believe one of the main factors is the female orgasm during childbirth, the contractions to squeeze the baby out of the vagina. If a person is unaware of this fact and then becomes aware during child birth, this feels like lack of consent and thus rape (with obvious suicide statistics of its own), betrayal, the discovery of prior taboo and censorship, and incomprehension why the information doesn't flow back to the medical (and school) system in order to adapt and better prepare future mothers of this natural function of the female orgasm. Instead they get assigned a shrink who shrugs off their frustration as "figments of their imagination", and openly document it as such in the literature. And then we collectively act surprised when some of them commit suicide? How many children must lose their mother, how many fathers must lose their wife, how family members must lose a relative, ... before we realize that this is too high a cost for the implicitly supposed "benefit" of "in sanity we trust"? The original comment does have its merit in cautioning against causation analysis without any timing information whatsoever (sadly one of the most common analysis techniques), like correlatings between classes of people (smoker / non smoker) X (healthy / cancer). But I think it would be more constructive for these run of the mill "correlation is not causation" rants to point out the value of multimodal measurement: for example measuring tar in your example, or measuring timing information as in the example I gave.

mellosouls 6y ago

This (causation as correlation) revelation was highlighted by Hume and this and other work by him had profound influence on Kant (famously awaking him from his "dogmatic slumbers") and scientists like Darwin and Einstein - the latter obviously in a more healthy scientific age when those at the forefront of physics were not so disdainful of philosophers.

danielam 6y ago
If you mean Hume's skepticism toward causation, then all I can say is that, as with all things Hume, he is highly overrated. The presuppositions that his arguments rest on aren't even accepted by most people who, to steal from Stroud, bow reverentially at his feet. For instance, most who pay homage to Hume do not accept his severe restrictions vis-a-vis causality in the realm of perception. But it is precisely this crude imagist theory of perception that Hume grounds his arguments against the knowledge of causation in. (Which is not to dismiss your point about their being a kind of savagery and philosophical philistinism among scientists. This was certainly Feyerabend's view.)
- mellosouls 6y ago
  I don't have time to delve into this (delving would be required as I don't have the knowledge on tap) and respond to it, but have upvoted anyway; whether I agree or disagree with this or some of your other comments, your eloquence is appreciated!
Geminidog 6y ago
A good analogy is geocentrism vs heliocentrism. Philosophy suffers from the same bias that promoted a geocentric view of the solar system. The idea that humanity and human thought and human culture is central. I believe this is where most of the disdain comes from. Yes philosophy has a lot to say about logic and science but then you get stuff like the philosophy of religion, education and of art which are purely human concepts unique to us.... similar to how the mating habits of the chimpanzee are unique to the chimpanzee it's easy to see a category error with philosophy. There is a dichotomy here and philosophy does not respect it, science and logic apply to both the human and the chimpanzee (whether the chimpanzee chooses to understand it or not) but art and religion and mating behavior do not cross this divide and is unique to each species. This is the main issue with philosophy, by placing the philosophy of religion on the same level as the philosophy of logic it is saying that human centric concepts are no different then universal concepts and that humans are the center of the universe.

arolihas 6y ago

Well yeah this is deduction vs induction