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Concept
Causal reasoning
Summary
Causal reasoning is the process of identifying causality: the relationship between a cause and its effect. The study of causality extends from ancient philosophy to contemporary neuropsychology; assumptions about the nature of causality may be shown to be functions of a previous event preceding a later one. The first known protoscientific study of cause and effect occurred in Aristotle's Physics. Causal inference is an example of causal reasoning.
Causal relationships may be understood as a transfer of force. If A causes B, then A must transmit a force (or causal power) to B which results in the effect. Causal relationships suggest change over time; cause and effect are temporally related, and the cause precedes the outcome.
Causality may also be inferred in the absence of a force, a less-typical definition. A cause can be removal (or stopping), like removing a support from a structure and causing a collapse or a lack of precipitation causing wilted plants.
Humans can reason about many topics (for example, in social and counterfactual situations and in the experimental sciences) with the aid of causal understanding. Understanding depends on the ability to comprehend cause and effect. People must be able to reason about the causes of others’ behavior (to understand their intentions and act appropriately) and understand the likely effects of their own actions. Counterfactual arguments are presented in many situations; humans are predisposed to think about “what might have been”, even when that argument has no bearing on the current situation.
Cause-and-effect relationships define categories of objects. Wings are a feature of the category "birds"; this feature is causally interconnected with another feature of the category, the ability to fly.
Traditionally, research in cognitive psychology has focused on causal relations when the cause and the effect are both binary values; both the cause and the effect are present or absent. It is also possible that both the cause and the effect take continuous values.
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