>
> Reminds me of Hume's idea that, "...When we look about us towards
> external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never
> able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary
> connection; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and
> renders the one an infallible consequence of the other...." in that we
> add alot to the events in the world and attribute these additions to
> the world -itself-
>
> There are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and
> uncertain, than those of power, force, energy or necessary
> connection. ... When we look about us towards external objects, and
> consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single
> instance, to discover any power or necessary connection; any quality,
> which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible
> consequence of the other.... Consequently, there is not, in any
> single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can
> suggest the idea of power or necessary connection. ...but the power or
> force, which actuates the whole machine [the universe], is entirely
> concealed from us, and never discovers itself in any of the sensible
> qualities of body.... It is impossible, therefore, that the idea of
> power can be derived from the contemplation of bodies, in single
> instances of their operation; because no bodies ever discover any
> power, which can be the original of this idea.
>
> When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term
> is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we
> need to enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived?
> And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our
> suspicion. Now if we produce an idea, like power or necessary
> connection, that we maintain is not derived from an antecedent
> impression, it is not incumbent upon Hume to produce the impression or
> abandon his empiricism. Instead. ...our idea is "without any meaning
> or idea." And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared
> to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion
> seems to be that we have no idea of connection or power at all, and
> that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed
> either in philosophical reasonings or common life.
>
> This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary
> transition of the imagination from one object to its ususal attendant,
> is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or
> necessary connection. Nothing farther is in the case.
>
> Causes and effects are discovered, not by reason but through
> experience, when we find that particular objects are constantly
> conjoined with one another. We tend to overlook this because most
> ordinary causal judgments are so familiar; we've made them so many
> times that our judgment seems immediate. But when we consider the
> matter, we realize that "an (absolutely) unexperienced reasoner could
> be no reasoner at all" (EHU, 45n). Even in applied mathematics, where
> we use abstract reasoning and geometrical methods to apply principles
> we regard as laws to particular cases in order to derive further
> principles as consequences of these laws, the discovery of the
> original law itself was due to experience and observation, not to a
> priori reasoning.
>
> The mental imagery and associations may reflect laws of motion and
> sequence but to claim they internally cause each other doesn't mean my
> mental activites causations reflect the causations of the observed
> sequences of changing atomic configurations.
>
> The Copy Principle accounts for the origins of our ideas. But our
> ideas are also regularly connected. As Hume put the point in his
> "Abstract" of the Treatise, "there is a secret tie or union among
> particular ideas, which causes the mind to conjoin them more
> frequently together, and makes the one, upon its appearance, introduce
> the other".
>
> A science of human nature should account for these connections.
> Otherwise, we are stuck with an eidetic atomism -- a set of discrete,
> independent ideas, unified only in that they are the contents of a
> particular mind. Eidetic atomism thus fails to explain how ideas are
> "bound together," and its inadequacy in this regard encourages us, as
> Hume thought it encouraged Locke, to postulate theoretical notions --
> power and substance being the most notorious -- to account for the
> connections we find among our ideas. Eidetic atomism is thus a prime
> source of the philosophical "hypotheses" Hume aims to eliminate.
>
> The principles required for connecting our ideas aren't theoretical
> and rational; they are natural operations of the mind, associations we
> experience in "internal sensation." Hume's introduction of these
> "principles of association" is the other distinctive feature of his
> empiricism, so distinctive that in the Abstract he advertises it as
> his most original contribution: "If any thing can intitle the author
> to so glorious a name as that of an inventor, 'tis the use he makes of
> the principle of the association of ideas".
>
> Hume locates "three principles of connexion" or association:
> resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. Of the three, causation
> is the only principle that takes us "beyond the evidence of our memory
> and senses." It establishes a link or connection between past and
> present experiences with events that we predict or explain, so that
> "all reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the
> relation of cause and effect." But causation and the ideas closely
> related to it also raise serious metaphysical problems: "there are no
> ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and uncertain, than
> those of power, force, energy or necessary connexion"
>
> Hume wants to "fix, if possible, the precise meaning of these terms,
> and thereby remove some part of that obscurity, which is so much
> complained of in this species of philosophy". This project provides a
> crucial experiment for Hume's metaphysical microscope, one designed to
> prove the worth of his method, to provide a paradigm for investigating
> problematic philosophical and theological notions, and to supply
> valuable material for these inquiries.
>
> What would be the "conditions" for solving this process bound
> simulation and it's generality?
>
>
http://www.friesian.com/hume.htm
>
http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/humepid.htm
