Causality, Predictions and Consciousness

Causality is a concept that is considered axiomatic in the workings of the universe, or at least in our daily experience. The concept of causality as understood in our working sense is simple, "Cause precedes action", a natural seeming concept. Every action, which here also means a result from another action or a seeming change of state, is not a standalone concept but bears it's root in a cause or a reason for it's existence. And the result is seemingly influenced by factors of space, time and causation, or simply the circumstance. And this rule is very strong founded in our experience of how the world works and also in how we are taught it works. But in an experiential sense, it may not appear so, for perceptions are naturally stained and limited and our proof too that proceeds from the data bank of these senses which are further selectively assimilated by our mind, for it is too an imperfect and limited instrument, a sense that governs senses. And this post seeks to look at it from the perspective of experience.

A pertinent question would be whether causality is true only in the sense of its definition. Is the cause to the action its cause only because it is defined and assumed to occur prior to the result, which is called so because it appears to proceed from the initial cause. And if so, on what basis can we not state that the action, or the result, precedes the cause. That the cause may exist in the temporal future, and it predetermines an action, a result, to appear before it in time as we know it. This may just be the argument of semantics in most cases, but it does illustrate a point that cause and effect may be used carelessly in the conventional sense, or even interchangeably depending on the precedence. But sometimes, there may be a non-reciprocity as is understood, that a certain action must proceed from the cause and cannot be interchanged as freely as may be with certain other cause-action pairs.

Perception is very deceptive as to the nature of what may be construed as a causative element or what may be an action element. Putting aside the concept of whether causality is defined semantically, it may appear that the causative element for a certain element occurs post the result it is understood to bring about normally. Non-causality may therefore be as real in the perceptive and subjective world as is causality. But this may only be because the subjective world does not concern itself wilfully with what is normally beyond its horizon of perception, either mentally or physically. And non-causality may indeed be true, for the cause of an action may succeed it in the sense that the cause of the cause may precede both it and the action. Therefore, if the cause and effect are linked and non-interchangeable, non-causality may simply be a causality from a higher and wider perspective. All this may simple be a play of perspective and span.

But does this link us to a primal cause? A reason that stands on its own ground, or an infinite regress? Or does this all turn itself into a stably locked loop, a circular logic that is destined to regress into the same paths it came by, inextricably linked to the beginning as it is to its own end? Does this imply that a free will does not exist and all that is, has been predetermined by the primal cause, which may be the beginning of the universe or exists even beyond? I have no definitive answer for this, but I do believe that one answer may have good value as a believable theory.

Nature bears power, raw, insentient nature. The force of a crashing boulder, unrelenting winds that bear down upon the raging tide, a solar flare, an atomic explosion. Insentient nature bears a great power, untamed and forceful and mighty. But there is a power which I believe even overpowers this and this belongs to the sentient part of nature. Not necessarily the wholly sentient nature, for even its supposed pinnacle, human thought, isn't completely sentient, but even partial sentience in nature has a power against its insentience and the force that may come crashing down upon it. And that power is resilience.

Even after an obliterating nuclear explosion, or death and devastating destruction, life seems to succeed. It adapts, evolves, it does not bend simply to the forces of nature that bear upon it. Plants grow in the harshest environments, and life does persevere against what seeks to bind it. True, life needs a certain range of circumstances under which it can survive, but within this domain it is resilient and trumps over what may seek to crush it, this is what brings me to believe that consciousness has a power to introduce and influence how causality functions, how results are brought about and how predictions may be made.

Predictive science, including astrology and the ilk, stands on shaky frontiers, often taken with skepticism, and for right reasons too for the number of dishonest people that practice it. But prediction may have some true value to it too, if it is possible to discern what happens at the heart of it. Notwithstanding the partial consciousness of the human psyche which can also behave very mechanically and instinctual, it is conscious to an extent too. And some more conscious than others, and this consciousness may be at the heart of the predictive science.

Consider I say I am going to draw a line in a book, I may or may not announce it, but it is a prediction in the sense of determining or theorizing a possible state in a future to be. And if that line actually does manifest, it is because the future was determined by a conscious will that chose to go against the forces of gravity pulling it down or the wind blowing on it. But if the pen was dry, then my conscious will does not overpower the greater (conscious?) power of natural law. But it may so occur that some other will may have the power to overpower that, suppose one that can replace the ink or something more creative. And thus, the realm of prediction may actually depend on the capacity to fathom movements in this conscious will and the forces that play about with and against it. So, astrology and other predictive subjects, or whatever may be called as such, may not be so nonsensical after all, for it may instead be a capacity to tap into and understand the movements of a person's or a collective's mind and movements, or an influence that captures the mind of many a person. And  the simple scope of causation and action may actually be influenced by this, may work in ways different than simple understanding of passive action of insentient matter.

Causation may exist, but in the end it is all a play of wills, of clashing forces that seek to overpower one another. And a more sentient force, one that has greater conscious will, or what we may call charisma may be instrumental in determining what the lesser conscious wills may perform, like a great general or a world leader or an insightful scientist. And one may also exert a greater influence over the forces in his life that govern him and may be the maker, or predictor of his own future by bringing himself to expand in scope as to encompass and assimilate the forces that act on him by rising to a greater scope of sentience and understanding than them. And sometimes, this may just be as simple as accepting them and letting them work as they need to do.