Having, alas, been one of the catalysts for this thread by asking "who believes in causality" at a FRIAM meeting, I do occasionally agree with Nick and think the thread has wandered, perhaps not "emerged". As St. Nick so aptly expressed: it is about repeating patterns. Ultimately "deep" (to borrow a term from ecology) causality, which should include quantum analysis, is unknowable given the limits of science and indeed our minds (certainly beyond the limits of my few remaining brain cells and synapses). Deep causality, like ecology, posits a complex chain of linked occurrences or flows; in some ways "event" is a concept not a reality. Perhaps "causality", like agent based models, is a very useful tool which permits us to deal with what is inside and outside ourselves. Does this make sense? Does it "cause" Nick's eyebrows to twitch? Paul
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