Cause+Effect

Cause+Effect:
The foundation for rationalism rests squarely on the principle of locality, the idea that correlated events
are related by a chain of causation.

There are three components to cause and effect:
l contiguity in space
l temporal priority of the cause (i.e. its first)
l necessary connection

The necessary connection in cause and effect events is the exchange of energy, which is the foundation of
information theory => knowledge is power (energy).
Also key to cause and effect is the concept that an object's existence and properties are independent of the
observation or experiment and rooted in reality.

Causal links build an existence of patterns that are a manifestation of the Universe's rational order. Does
the chain of cause and effect ever end? Is there an `Initial Cause'?
Science:
The tool of the philosophy of rationalism is called science. Science is any system of knowledge that is concerned with
the physical world and its phenomena and entails unbiased observations and/or systematic experimentation. In
general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws of
nature.

Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge, but it provides something that other philosophies often fail to
provide, concrete results. Science is a ``candle in the dark'' to illuminate irrational beliefs or superstitions.

Science does not, by itself, advocate courses of human action, but it can certainly illuminate the possible consequences
of alternative courses. In this regard, science is both imaginative and disciplined, which is central to its power of
prediction.
The keystone to science is proof or evidence/data, which is not to be confused with certainty. Except in pure
mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false). Central to the scientific method is a
system of logic.
Scientific arguments of logic basically take on four possible forms; 1) the pure method of deduction, where some
conclusion is drawn from a set of propositions (i.e. pure logic), 2) the method of induction, where one draws general
conclusions from particular facts that appear to serve as evidence, 3) by probability, which passes from frequencies
within a known domain to conclusions of stated likelihood, and 4) by statistical reasoning, which concludes that, on
the average, a certain percentage of a set of entities will satisfy the stated conditions. To support these methods, a
scientist also uses a large amount of skepticism to search for any fallacies in arguments.

The fact that scientific reasoning is so often successful is a remarkable property of the Universe, the dependability of
Nature.