causality

We understand a story’s meaning, in part, by tracking its causality, and a story’s power stems from our sense that its causality is truthful, which is to say, that its internal logic is solid.

Causation is always more difficult to prove than Correlation. When analyzing complex Systems with many variables and Interdependencies, it’s often extremely difficult to find true causality.

There are two kinds of causes, those that are intelligent, and those that, being moved by others, are, in turn, compelled to move others. The former are endowed with mind, and are the workers of things fair and good, while the latter produce chance effects without order or design.

Causality, broadly interpreted, includes any kind of knowledge about how the world changes over time.*1

As rational animals, human beings naturally desire to know the truth about reality. As Aristotle puts it at the beginning of The Metaphysics, “All men by nature desire to know.”