Cause and Effect

[McCulloch]

the effect can't be greater than the cause

Is this true for all attributes? How far can this concept be generalized?

[Goat]

the effect can't be greater than the cause

Is this true for all attributes? How far can this concept be generalized?

There are many effects that are 'greater than the cause'. The example of Chaos theory about the wings of a butterfly in Africa causing a hurricane in the U.S. shows in theory, a event that is much greater than it's cause.

[The Mad Haranguer]

the effect can't be greater than the cause

Is this true for all attributes? How far can this concept be generalized?

There are many effects that are 'greater than the cause'. The example of Chaos theory about the wings of a butterfly in Africa causing a hurricane in the U.S. shows in theory, a event that is much greater than it's cause.

Very true, but the effect is in the cause. What about the way I put it? I'm pretty sure it is what was meant.

[bjs]

the effect can't be greater than the cause

Is this true for all attributes? How far can this concept be generalized?

There are many effects that are 'greater than the cause'. The example of Chaos theory about the wings of a butterfly in Africa causing a hurricane in the U.S. shows in theory, a event that is much greater than it's cause.

This gets to the issue of what we mean by “cause.�

In Chaos theory a butterfly on its own cannot “cause� a hurricane. It could cause a slight breeze that affects a small wind which in turn affects a slightly larger weather system which in turn affects… on up until you get a hurricane. The butterfly made the shift that lead to the hurricane, so without the butterfly there would have been no hurricane. But it was the pressure systems that ultimately “caused� the hurricane. (The illustration of the butterfly was originally used to point out that there so many variables and “causes� in the world that it is impossible to predict the weather more than two weeks in advance).

I would compare this to dominoes. If I set up a thousand dominoes in a row and then knock the first one over then all of them will eventually fall over. In one sense knocking over the first domino caused all the other dominoes to fall. However, without the additional cause of setting up each of those dominoes in the right position, knocking over one domino would only have the effect of knocking over that one domino.

In general I would say that no effect can be greater than the sum total of all its causes.

[LiamOS]

In Chaos theory a butterfly on its own cannot “cause� a hurricane.

No, that's what chaos theory concerns itself with.
You objection to a chain of cause means that an effect can only be attributed to the very last cause.
The idea of the butterfly example is that a butterfly created a chain of causation.