PHILOSOPHY WARNING!!!
This argument stems from a discussion I recently had with one of my fellow seminarians who is a staunch defender of causality. Let the fun begin! :
Thesis: the mental conception of ‘causality’ is not necessarily reflective of reality. It cannot be said that causality is the state of events, even though it may be a useful mental construct that aids in finding meaning in reality.
Caveat: At least in Romance and other Western languages the understanding of causality is assumed and built into our very language, thus perpetuating the idea and making it very hard to think outside of the causality mental construct, it also makes it impossible to make an argument against causality without using the language of causality. [So, don’t try to argue against this argument by pointing out that I’m using causal language, in charity please read so as to understand my meaning, and argue with that]
1.There is the individual being who senses, who is able to experience realities outside of itself, though it is not clear that one experiences these external realities as they actually are.
2. In order to understand how to survive and live as an individual in this existence where we are not sure if we correctly understand stimuli from external realities we must develop ways of understanding and systematizing our experience.
[Example: We seem to be in something that we have some control over and is a part of ourselves, so we develop an understanding of “body” and what to do with it. Also, this body needs things to survive and flourish, so we develop systematized understandings of “food” and “cleanliness.”]
3. Causality, the understanding that a certain reality will have a certain effect on another reality, is a systematization that seeks to allow us to come to some understanding of external realities.
4. However, we are able to experience external realities without using this mental construct of causality.
[Example: causality: The cloud covering the sun moves and the rock is now in the sun, the rock is heated by the sun// experience: a cloud, the sun, a rock, a hot rock//:both describe the state of events exactly as they are, though causality adds a level of interpretation that is not necessarily in the realities themselves]
Conclusion: the understanding of causality is not necessary for experiencing reality.
Significance/moving forward from this: I make this argument seeking to find another understanding that makes sense of external realities without using the understanding of causality. This quest is mostly motivated by academic curiosity[-:
-sDB