There Is No “Why” in the World

Cause and Effect Type 1

A set out on a journey through the desert carrying a single bottle of water.
B, intending to kill A, replaced the water in A’s bottle with sand.
C, feeling thirsty, took advantage of the moment when A was asleep and stole A’s water bottle, even though C knew that this action might lead to A’s death.

A had no water and eventually died of thirst.

Cause and Effect Type 2

One day, father got up from bed.
However, his back hurt so badly that he could barely move.

Realizing that he could not go to meet a friend he had planned to see, he called his friend and said:

“My back was already hurting yesterday, but I went to the bathhouse, soaked in hot water for a while, and did some stretching, and it seemed to get better. After coming back from the bathhouse, I sat on the bed and watched TV for about an hour. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, I could barely shuffle around, but I couldn’t lift my leg at all. So unfortunately, I won’t be able to go today.”

After hearing this, his son said to him:

“Beds are bad for your back. I’ll remove the mattress and frame, so you should start sleeping on the floor.”

Father replied:

“No. I’ve always slept on the bed and it was fine. I must have strained my back while working yesterday.”

The son responded:

“Beds are soft and sink down, so your back can’t heal while you sleep. Your back is strained during the day, and it’s strained again at night, so it’s being overused with no chance to recover.”

Father did not change his mind.

At first glance, Type 1 and Type 2 may seem similar, but they are actually quite different. Let me explain them using the light-switch model we learned in elementary school.

Type 1 resembles a parallel circuit.

B’s action and C’s action correspond to separate switches.
They are connected in parallel, and if either one is pressed, the light turns on.

In other words, even if B had not acted, A would still have died because of C’s action.
The bottle would not have been filled with sand, but it would have been stolen by C.

Likewise, even if C had not acted, A would still have died because of B’s action.
The bottle would not have been stolen, but its contents would have been replaced with sand, and A would have died of thirst.

However, this does not lead to the conclusion that both B and C should be declared innocent by a judge.
Both B and C can be regarded as causes of A’s death.

Type 2 can be understood as a series circuit.

Both conditions, sleeping on the bed and straining the back, must be satisfied for the light to turn on. In this case, the light corresponds to the back pain.

If father had done heavy work but his back had recovered overnight, there would have been no problem.
If he had slept on the bed but had not done heavy work, there would have been no problem either.

However, when both conditions are satisfied, the back pain occurs.

Father decided that sleeping on the bed was not the problem.
In other words, inside father’s mind, sleeping on the bed becomes a hidden switch, and the event can be interpreted as a single causal relationship. Doing hard work causes back pain.

Now we can attempt a meta-interpretation of the interpretation itself. We can ask why father adopted this single causal explanation.

For instance, we might speculate that father values his role as a father and his authority as an interpreter of causal relationships.

With a bit more imagination, we might suggest that my father, gradually losing his position within the family as an economic provider, has become sensitive to his son’s interference.

Or perhaps he takes pride in the work he has done, or harbors resentment toward the son who pushed him to keep working despite his back pain.

At this point, this interpretation of an interpretation is no longer a simple causal model. It becomes something evaluated by how persuasive it is. In other words, it moves into a domain closer to art.

The same applies to Type 1.

In describing Type 1, I tried to narrate the event as neutrally as possible.
But such neutrality will inevitably appear unsatisfactory, or even cowardly, to someone.

Imagine D, a friend of A who had spent his entire life dealing with A’s foolishness and had grown thoroughly tired of it.
D might say something like this:

“Why did he even go into the desert with just one bottle of water? A was always like that. He constantly created situations where problems were bound to happen and then blamed others for them. If he was going to travel in the desert, he should at least have gone somewhere with a chance of rescue. Going out there alone like that. Does that make any sense? You keep talking about B and C, but the truth is simple. A died because he had no sense of responsibility for his own life.”

Do you believe that it is possible to explain causal relationships through a universally valid principle that provokes no emotional resistance from anyone?

If such a principle exists, please tell me.