Sta Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A blog by Leon Oudejans

The confusion between cause and effect

“Having been a victim was a strong predictor of becoming a perpetrator”. This sentence is an excerpt from a 2001 study called: “Cycle of child sexual abuse: links between being a victim and becoming a perpetrator” (NCBI). This phenomenon is also called the “victim to offender cycle” or “the Cycle of Abuse” (NCBI-2018). This cycle is probably responsible for our confusion between cause and effect (eg, abuse, climate change, change in general).

Differentiating cause and effect within Change depends on our individual perspective. A discussion about such change can then easily become confusing.

Also see my 20 June 2019 blog: The truth is a human perspective.

Change is a never-ending sequence of cause and effect, whereas an effect becomes a cause for further change (read: next effect).

The U.S.-China trade war is another example of this cycle of cause and effect. While it may look like a tit-for-tat “game”, there is no “equivalent retaliation”. With each American and Chinese move, the stakes become higher. CNN, 6 August 2019: “Each round of escalation gets them closer to a recession — and to a point of no return”. The one who would aim for de-escalation may seem like a loser rather than wiser.

The U.S.-China trade war is also about Change: who will be the next SuperPower? The American (sic!) clairvoyant Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) “[] suggested that eventually the height of civilization would move from the West to the Chinese people: “And these will progress. For, civilization moves west.” Source: Edgar Cayce’s seven prophecies yet to come.

One could wonder why we even bother to separate cause and effect. The reason might well be that causality (ie, cause and effect) is the foundation of our legal system. Wiki: “According to law and jurisprudence, legal cause must be demonstrated to hold a defendant liable for a crime []”.

Wiki: “Multiple philosophers have believed that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. [] Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses [] Aristotelian philosophy uses the word “cause” to mean “explanation” or “answer to a ‘why’ question” [] failure to recognize that different kinds of “cause” are being considered can lead to futile debate”.

The theories about what predates the Big Bang (eg, LiveScience-2019) are another example of our belief in – or confusion about – cause and effect.

State of Confusion (1983) by The Kinks

artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2

Note: all markings (bolditalicunderlining) by LO unless stated otherwise

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