Aeon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/aeon.co\/essays\/causal-understanding-is-not-a-point-of-view-its-a-point-of-do<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am quoting the final paragraphs of this essay by Mariel Goddu without further comment. The first two-thirds of the article talks about cause and effect in the growing mind of children and animals. The descriptions of cause and effect nicely resemble ritualing, which animals do instinctually and which we do consciously. The author is refreshingly optimistic about our ability to pull through our perilous climate change future. Enjoy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNonhuman action is characterised less by control and more by something like cooperation. It\u2019s an existence where \u2018doing\u2019means working with the environment, not dominating it. Acting is like the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can\u2019t change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. Think of swimming in the ocean when a big wave comes. You can decide whether to go over or under. But you can\u2019t try to stop it \u2013 you have to go with the flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This worldview was once ours, too. Before the world appeared to us as manipulable and controllable, ripe to be bent to our will, it was dynamically present. It was there as a push \u2013 sometimes in support, and sometimes in opposition. It was a force to be reckoned with, demanding consideration in our doings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is what our superpower lets us overcome \u2013 and forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I think about human causal understanding, I often think of The Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice. It\u2019s an animated short from Disney\u2019s musical anthology Fantasia(1940), based on an eponymous poem by Goethe. Mickey Mouse \u2013 dressed in a blue wizard hat and red robes \u2013 is a mischievous sorcerer-in-training. He steals his teacher\u2019s spell book and bewitches a broomstick to do his chore: filling up a cauldron. The broom sprouts arms, picks up Mickey\u2019s buckets, and starts marching around. It fetches some water and empties it into the cauldron. Then, it does it again\u2026 and again. And again. The cauldron overflows, and Mickey panics. He chops up the broom with an axe \u2013 but each magical splinter transforms into a broomstick itself! Soon, there\u2019s a whole army of brooms filling the cauldron. When the sorcerer finally rescues him, Mickey is clinging to the spell book, rafting around in a flood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our causal understanding is the foundation of science and engineering. It has given us plumbing, electricity and sanitation; bicycles, tunnels and rockets; vaccines and chemotherapy. It\u2019s the basis of social technologies like moral accountability, trade agreements and traffic laws. It lets us plan, tell stories and imagine new possibilities. But it can be a dark magic, too. Our immense power to manipulate our physical and social environments has produced the industrial pollutants transforming the climate; the microplastics seeping into our brains, testes and breastmilk; factory farms and toxic pesticides; addictive processed food; drugs of abuse; weapons of mass destruction; and algorithms expressly designed to manipulate your decision-making and attention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aeon https:\/\/aeon.co\/essays\/causal-understanding-is-not-a-point-of-view-its-a-point-of-do I am quoting the final paragraphs of this essay by Mariel Goddu without further comment. The first two-thirds of the article talks about cause and effect in the growing mind of children and animals. The descriptions of cause and effect nicely resemble ritualing, which animals do instinctually andContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-qualiens","post-4039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9QShd-139","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4041,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions\/4041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}