Properties Of Causes Research Articles

Reasoning with Expectations About Causal Relations

Abstract Reasoning is not just following logical rules, but a large part of human reasoning depends on our expectations about the world. To some extent, non-monotonic logic has been developed to account for the role of expectations. In this article, the focus is on expectations based on actions and their consequences. The analysis is based on a two-vector model of events where an event is represented in terms of two main components – the force of an action that drives the event, and the result of its application. Actions are modelled in terms of the force domain and the results are modelled with the aid of different domains for locations or properties of objects. As a consequence, the assumption that reasoning about causal relations should be made in terms of propositional structures becomes very unnatural. Instead, the reasoning will be based on the geometric and topological properties of causes and effects modelled in conceptual spaces.

Evaluation Method of Voltage Sag Severity in Distribution Networks

Recently voltage sags have gradually become one of the most important power quality problems with the large scale use of sensitive electrical equipment. Analysis of varied attributes causing voltage sags can not only guide the planning, equipment selection, operation and maintenance of power supply engineering, but also can provide a theoretical basis for effectively assessing the risks and severity of the power quality incidents. It is meaningful to combine the existing problems of technology and management level to get the assessment results of the voltage sags. In this paper, clustering analysis and evaluation method are proposed for multi-cause attributes that affect voltage sags. The calculation method of the voltage on the multiple fault location parameters in the power grid is derived. The evaluation method of the voltage sags considering the user’s tolerance level is given. The characteristic properties of causes are used as parameters to describe disturbances which provide a basis for voltage sag evaluation. Then the equipment compatibility index is introduced, the analytic hierarchy process is used to determine the weight of the voltage sag evaluation index, and the severity of the voltage sag of each node of the distribution network is calculated to realize the distribution network voltage sag severity assessment. Finally, the voltage sag under multi causal attributes is analyzed using the equipment compatibility index as the standard, and the sag severity of the equipment is analyzed. The multi-factor attributes contribution degree proposed in this paper takes the equipment compatibility as the index, and can accurately reflect the impact of various attributes on equipment after voltage sags.

Criticism of D.B Volkov’s Teleofunctional Solution to the Problem of Mental Causation

The articles examines the teleofunctional solution to the problem of mental causation, presented by Dmitry Volkov in his recently published book Free Will. An Illusion or an Opportunity. D.B. Volkov proposes solutions to three big metaphysical problems – mental causation, personal identity, and free will. Solving the first problem, Volkov creatively combines the advantages of Dennett’s teleofunctional model and Vasilyev’s local interactionism. Volkov’s teleofunctional model of mental causation seeks to prove the causal relevance of mental properties as non-local higher order properties. In my view, its substantiation is based on three points: (a) critics of the exclusion problem and Kim’s model of mental causation, (b) “Library of first editions” argument, (c) reduction of the causal trajectories argument (CTA 1) by Vasilyev to the counterpart argument (CTA 2) by Volkov. Each of these points faces objections. Kim’s criticism is based on an implicit confusion of two types of reduction – reduction from supervenience and from multiple realizability. The latter type does not threaten Kim’s ideas, but Volkov uses this very type in his criticism. The “Library of first editions” argument does not achieve its goal due to compositional features and because non-local relational properties are a type of external properties that cannot be causally relevant. The reduction of CTA 1 to CTA 2 is unsuccessful since, in the case of this reduction, important features of CTA 1 are lost – these are local mental properties, due to which the influence of non-local physical factors occurs. My main objection is that the concept of causally relevant non-local properties is incompatible with the very concept of cause. The set of causally relevant properties of cause can only be local.

Mental Causation and the Supervenience Argument

One of several problems concerning the possibility of mental causation is that the causal potential of a supervenient property seems to be absorbed by its supervenience base if that base and the supervenient property are not identical. If the causal powers of the supervenient property are a proper subset of the causal powers of the supervenience base then, according to the causal individuation of properties, the supervenience base seems to do all the causal work and the supervenient property appears to be futile. Against this consequence it is possible to argue, first, that the relevant properties of causes must be in some sense proportional to the relevant properties of their effects and, second, that the principle of causal closure serving as a premise in the supervenience argument is probably false. The constraint that the relevant properties of causes should be proportional to the relevant properties of their effects together with the falsity of the closure principle leads to a restoration of the causal efficacy of supervenient properties.

Pity, Anger, and Guilt

Three basic dimensions of causality, which represent the underlying properties of causes, have been identified: locus, stability, and controllability. Evidence was presented that these dimensions are linked with feelings of pity, anger, and guilt. Two experiments were conducted; one asked participants to recall situations in which pity, anger, and guilt were experienced, while the other examined ratings of pity and anger as a function of the a priori classification of given causes of events. It was found that uncontrollable causes of negative events gave rise to pity, independent of the locus of the cause. For both anger and guilt, the associated cause was perceived as controllable and internal to the target of the emotion. Stable causes influenced the magnitude, rather than the direction, of emotions. It was contended that causal thoughts often precede and determine the experiences of pit, anger, and guilt.