opium induces sleep because it is made of molecules that induce sleep?
Fascinating, I would like to know more. What kind of molecules? What are they called? What do they look like? What is the difference between these molecules and the molecules of water? between these opium molecules and milk, alcohol? What kind of sleep does opium induce? Is it deep sleep? Restful sleep?

Sure, you can try to answer these questions without telling me anything. but more than likely I'll learn something about the nature of opium and why it induces sleep. It won't be shuffling ignorance.

But "in the real world", we have functional truths and functional causation. As Satan said in his reply to me, "negligible" means that something can be ignored, but that does not make it disproved. That is correct. But if all our decisions and assertions were beset by negligible (but not disproved) doubts, we couldn't function. In other words, there needs to be a functional, "useful" concept of causation whether or not it measures up in the most abstract, exacting terms.

The usefulness of the concept of causation suggests to me that there is something 'real' about it. Otherwise, we could get by with the concept of correlation alone. Admittedly, causation cannot be conclusively proved, but it is a non sequitur to claim that it therefore does not exist. In fact, there is overwhelming statistical evidence that it does. We constantly find that, out of a range of theoretical outcomes of an event, the statistics are strongly skewed towards one particular outcome: heated metal almost always expands, water usually flows downhill, and so on. These 'strong' correlations are, as pointed out earlier, different in kind from 'weak' correlations such as one clock striking just after another.

Then there is the question of prediction. We all act (even after philosophical reflection) as if we believe that strong correlations will continue to apply in the future, i.e. that there is causation. Sometimes this involves taking inconvenient or arduous precautions against some expected danger. If it is said that we could not function without assuming causation, the obvious question is: why not? The functionality of causation has to be taken seriously. We should think not only about absolute proof but also about evidence, which is just as valid a philosophical concept.

Satan - In your view, what would count as an 'explanation' of an event? Are you saying that there is no such thing as an explanation, or merely that you have never found one (yet)? My view is that we have partial explanations of things, but that a total explanation of everything (though it exists) may be beyond our capacity to grasp.

It is a tautology to say that the water froze because it was cooled to its freezing point; but it is not a tautology to say that it froze because it was cooled to 0?C. The latter is a partial (though of course incomplete) explanation.

It's not a tautology to say "the freezing point" either, because it's NOT always 0 centigrade. It depends on the solutes and on the atmospheric pressure. "Freezing point" is a shorthand for the temperature at which a chemical phenomenon termed "freezing" occurs, but one could express the same thing using words other than freezing -- it would just be a lot more cumbersome.

Outside of a laboratory the freezing point is very close to 0, but not exactly 0 unless you've got a thermally closed system and distilled water at 760 torr atmospheric pressure. So unless you want to get into answering "what is 0" based on the number of significant figures, you CANNOT say that the freezing point is truly 0 outside of a lab.

Suppose you had a dream, and in your dream you picked up a rock, observed it, and concluded it was hard because of its molecular makeup. You would indeed be wrong, and if you had the same dream a million times, you would still be wrong. How do you know you are not dreaming now? Maybe reality is just a more elaborate dream created by an infinitely more powerful mind, and the only true causation has to do with the fact that we perceive anything at all.

Does this kind of thing really have anything to do with the issue?

opium induces sleep because it is made of molecules that induce sleep?
Fascinating, I would like to know more. What kind of molecules? What are they called? What do they look like? What is the difference between these molecules and the molecules of water? between these opium molecules and milk, alcohol? What kind of sleep does opium induce? Is it deep sleep? Restful sleep?

Sure, you can try to answer these questions without telling me anything. but more than likely I'll learn something about the nature of opium and why it induces sleep. It won't be shuffling ignorance.

Our use of the word "cause" in anything but abstract philosophical banter IS a practicality. If someone goes to the mechanic and ask why your "Check Engine" light turned on, they are inquiring about cause. If the police investigate a murder, they are trying to discover the human whose volitional agency caused a death. Our actions and are conversations are riddled with the concept of cause. So cause, therefore, has a functional meaning that does not require that it be absolute.

What exactly does it mean for A to "explain why" B happens? What is the difference between a description and an explanation? What's the difference between saying "metal expands after you heat it" rather than saying "metal expands because you heat it"? What's missing in the former that's present in the latter?

be-"cause" is the different from "after", as it ascribes causality ?

Do you subscribe to the belief that useful equals true?

Sort of. The way I'd phrase it is that the only true that humans have access to is that which seems sufficiently true. We have no access to absolute truth -- talking about absolute truth belongs in church.

You don't mean that there is nothing that causes that rock to be hard, do you? You would be mistaken if you thought so. The rock is constituted of molecules that act in a certain way so that the rock is hard. A sponge's molecular structure is much different, which is why the sponge is soft.

All I ever see are "afters" I never see "causes". After I flip the light switch, the light comes on (usually). I don't see any cause. What's the difference between B happening after A and A causing B? How can we test the difference?

We know that those attributes are present together, claiming that molecular structure is what causes hardness is not a necessary claim. It suffices to say that molecular density ect. is always present with hardness so that if one is present, it is in general safe to assume the other.

I can't claim that nothing causes the rock to be hard nor can I claim that I know precisely what does at a totally fundamental level, I can only observe the relational patterns that occur and draw practical conclusions/predictions.

If this is causation:"that X is always present with Y and nothing else is necessarily present(and X is more fundamental than Y) means that X causes Y", then I agree that it is fine to say that the molecular structure of the rock causes it to be hard.

However, this does presuppose that there is no presently undetected Z(or ignores the possibility until the Z is detected and explored). That is fine, as it is more practical and sensible to only take into account what is known, however; it is important to keep the possibility of Z in the back of our minds, recognizing that causality is not an absolute known.