Causation

It always amuses me when people reason from cause-and-effect as if it is the only reasonable paradigm. It's not that I mind, since part of my livelihood stems from teaching that cause-and-effect can be the basis of knowledge. But I'd like people to think about it a bit more.

Just imagine, if you will, that X is a character in a novel. Now look at X and ask the usual questions:

• Does X have free will?
• Does cause-and-effect apply to X and X's actions?
• Does reading the novel backwards have any effect on X's reality?

and so on.

You might have the illusion that 'cause-and-effect' works because the author of your novel is extremely meticulous about internal consistency. Perhaps he is infinitely meticulous, but is not averse to breaking the rules for the sake of the plot.

Think about it.