Dependence causation

The type of data collected on human error and the ways in which these data are used for accident prevention will vary depending upon the model of error and accident causation held by the management of an organization. This model will also influence the culture in the plant and the willingness of personnel to participate in data collection activities. In Chapters 1 and 2 a number of alternative viewpoints or models of human error were described. These models will now be briefly reviewed and their implications for the treatment of human error in the process industry will be discussed. 

Nevertheless, depressive episodes among alcohol-dependent men and women are heterogeneous in terms of both causation and clinical course. Studies have shown differences between patients with the onset of major depression before alcohol dependence or during a long abstinence period (i.e., independent major depression) versus those who experience depressive symptoms only in association with alcohol use ( 34). Specifically, the former are more likely to ... 

Would anyone have doubted the usual direction of dependence of levels by considering a chemical reaction For example when compound A and B react are they reacting because they are being driven to do so from below by the protons and electrons in their molecules Or are they reacting because of some property that is possessed by the two molecules at the chemical level of organization What is the direction of dependence It is by no means clear that reactivity is driven from below, that the chemical is dependent on the physical and not vice versa. If indeed the chemical levels determine the physical it is said that downward causation is taking place. 

McLaughlin takes the fact that there is now a highly successful quantum mechanical account of chemical bonding to indicate that the chemical level is dependent upon the physical and that physical forces bring about bonding at the chemical level. As may be seen in die above quotation McLaughlin takes this state of affairs to leave no room whatsoever for downward causation. 

Clinically, the picture of addiction obviously varies with and is also dependent upon both the set and the setting. To some extent it might be said that addiction results when strong negative consequences are insufficient to stop drug intake. Neurobiological research points to four basic aspects of addiction with different causation primary (core) effects on reward and motivational systems primary contributory effects in other brain structures core neuroadaptafions to repeated use and contributory neuroadaptations to repeated use. 

Incident causation is assumed to progress from the bottom to the top, which means that chances for early prevention of accidents decrease as you get closer to the top. The order of incident analysis is assumed to be top-down, but with different starting points in the iceberg depending On the type (or level) of data that trigger the detection in the first place. It is also assumed that modem investigation techniques will always try to get as far to the bottom of... 

It has been argued, though, that supervenience is not itself a dependence relation, but only a modalized covariance of properties. On this view, it is at best the sign of ontological dependence, related to it as correlation is to causation, see Horgan 1993. 

If these are the only kinds of cases that can be called cases of causal overdetermination, then Kim is right that it is absurd to think that all cases of mental causation are cases of overdetermination. If we use the term overdetermination as Kim seems to here, then we should reject the idea that P is causally overdetermined by M and P. Surely M and P are not completely independent and individually sufficient causes for P. Rather, M and P are related by supervenience (and possibly also by realization and event identity as well). It is not as if M could have caused P even if P had not occurred. If P had not occurred, M would not have occurred either - M depends on P for its existence. Thus, it seems plausible to accept premise (7) in Kim s exclusion argument - i.e. that P is not causally overdetermined by M and P. 

Once the exclusion principle has been rejected, then we no longer have any reason to reject nonreductive materialism on the grormds of exclusion. Furthermore, the most plausible alternative to nomeductive materialism - Kim s functional reduction - cannot be defended, since there is strong evidence in favor of the context dependence of scientific (and mental) properties. So at this point, nonreductive materialism seems to be the most viable option for a successful theory of mental causation. Let us now turn to some positive reasons for accepting a nomeductivist view of mental causation. 

Successful inductive inferences often depend on getting the causal mechanism right. If we correctly understand the causal mechanism at work in the phenomena we observe, then we will get the right causal explanation that accounts for why things have occurred the way they have. And if we correctly understand how the causation works in this case, then we can successfully predict future cases. The generalizations we make to project to future cases are often derived directly from our causal explanation of the observed event. 

Ron McClamrock (1995a, ch. 3) has argued that we can use the ideas of multiple realizability and context dependence to pick out preferred levels of causation and explanation. When we have token identity at different levels, we can use the ideas of multiple realizability and context dependence to hold properties at one level fixed while varying properties at other levels, in order to try to see at which level the causal mechanism occurs. In the ball-sorter case, we see that the causation occurs in virtue of size and that the macro-level of size is the right level of explanation. 

We can also use the idea of context dependence to hypothetically hold the local neural properties of the brain fixed, while allowing the mental properties to vary due to the external context in which the subject is situated. If changing the mental properties caused a different behavior, then in this case the causation would be in virtue of the mental properties, rather than in virtue of any particular lower-level detail. If, however, varying the mental properties, while holding the neural properties constant resulted in the same behavior, then we would know that in this case, the behavior was caused in virtue of the particular micro-configuration of neural realizers. 

I have argued that if we take a closer look at causation, we see that there is no plausible reason for accepting the exclusion principle. We can use the ideas of multiple realizability and context dependence to help us isolate which properties are causal properties. When we do this, we can see that there is nothing about causation that ought to lead us to think that sufficiency at one level will rule out causation at other levels. 

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