She asked,"Is there a cause and effect relationship?" During the day, the sun came out and melted the snow. Ask you: What is the reason for the snow to melt?
You must have answered that it was because of the sun.
However, you can only see the two different facts of the sun and the snow melting, but you don't see the causality between them. How can you infer that the former fact is the cause of the latter?
You might say," We can use the temperature juice to measure that the sun causes the temperature of the snow to rise, and we can also measure that the temperature of the snow will melt when it rises to a certain degree. This proves that there is a causality between the two."
You can see the sun and the mercury rising in the thermometer, and the mercury rising and the snow melting, but you still can't see the cause and effect between them. Even if you take out a microscope and see the movement of water molecules under the sun and the distance between water molecules increasing through the microscope to prove the cause and effect between the sun and the snow melting, I can still ask you: You only saw the sun, the movement of water molecules, and the melting of snow, but did you see the causality between them? No matter how precise the instruments were used to observe and experiment, what you could see were only facts and the relationships between them that appeared simultaneously or successively. Causality could never be inferred from such relationships.
What I'm talking about here is the view of the 18th century British philosopher Hume. Not only did he deny that there was a necessary connection between cause and effect, but he also denied the existence of any cause and effect relationship. His views could be summarized into two points: First, our senses can only perceive individual facts, not whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship between facts. Just because certain facts are often gathered together and perceived by us one after another or at the same time, we infer that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between them. Therefore, the so-called causality is just our habitual association. As for whether it actually exists, we will never know. Second, causality is the relationship between one fact and another, but observation and experiment are always limited. No matter how many times we see two facts appear at the same time or in succession, we cannot conclude that they will always be so. Even if you see the sun rise every morning, you can't be sure that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Experience could only explain the past, not the future. From experience, one could not draw a necessary judgment that was always valid.
Regardless of whether Hume's view was right or wrong, there was some truth in it, which ultimately had a major impact on later philosophers. The philosophers after him tended to be more cautious about causality. They either regarded it as a probability relationship, that is, one fact is likely (but not necessarily) to lead to another fact, or they regarded it as a necessary way of thinking that we use to organize the data of experience. Then, is there an inevitable causality between objective things? However, if you were not satisfied with just having this belief and wanted to prove it theoretically, you would find that it was not an easy thing to do. So far, no philosopher had been able to do this. Maybe you can, so you might as well give it a try.”She asked again,"Does nature have a purpose?"”"Let me ask you a small question first. Why do people's nostrils face down? Of course, it had to be facing downwards. If it was facing upwards, wouldn't the rainwater flow upwards when it rained? Well, your answer expressed a philosophical point of view, which is called teleology in the history of philosophy.
The world was so wonderful that one couldn't help but marvel at the ingenuity of nature and whether there was a purpose in the arrangement. You see, the sun gives the earth a moderate amount of light and heat, so that the grass grows luxuriantly and all things grow. Plants had roots to absorb water and nutrients, leaves to receive sunlight, and flowers to reproduce. Animal organs had their own uses. The most wonderful thing is the existence of human beings. The Creator bestowed us with intelligent minds and emotional hearts, as if to let us think and appreciate the beautiful world it created.
However, the same phenomenon could be explained differently. For example, one could say that the nostrils were facing down to prevent rainwater from pouring in, which was a teleological explanation. It could also be said that this was the result of natural selection. Perhaps there were some creatures with nostrils facing up that were eliminated because they were not suitable for survival. This was the explanation of causality. Both explanations were illogical. On the one hand, if natural change had no purpose, why would it eliminate species that were not suitable for survival and leave only species that were suitable for survival? It could be seen that it had at least one purpose, which was to promote survival. On the other hand, if nature really had a purpose, why did it create so many species that were not suitable for survival and then destroy them? Why did it use floods, earthquakes, plagues, and so on to mercilessly destroy the life it had painstakingly created? It could be seen that the so-called purpose was just an explanation taken out of context.
In fact, the difference between these two explanations was not as big as it seemed. The explanation of causality traced back to the past from the current situation, using past events as the cause to explain the current situation. The explanation of teleology started from the past and deduced from the present situation, using the present situation as a purpose to explain past events. When these two explanations were pushed to the extreme, they would lead to the same destination, which would also lead to fatalism. It is difficult for me to see any substantial difference between saying that everything in the world is determined by the iron necessity of causality, or that they are arranged by God according to a certain purpose.
Was there any other explanation? Yes, that was the explanation of coincidence. According to this theory, the entire universe was a complete disorder. In this chaos, in a relatively small area, the formation of a relatively orderly world, the birth of our galaxy, Earth, life on Earth, and humans was purely accidental. This was like a British story: There was a group of monkeys around a typing machine, typing out many meaningless letters. Once, however, the letters they typed actually formed a short poem by shakespeare. Can you say that they intentionally typed this poem? Of course not. Can you find out the reason why they wrote this poem? Definitely not. Therefore, you have no choice but to explain it as pure coincidence. This was the case if nature was understood as the entire universe. Of course, this doesn't exclude a narrow range, that is, in the relatively orderly universe where we live, the development of things presents some kind of causality or purposeful representation. However, don't forget that the representation of causality and purpose is only relative. They are purely accidental and will eventually disappear in the chaos of the universe.
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