CAUSATION concept

"Even a concept as basic as CAUSATION is not purely emergent or purely metaphorical. Rather, it appears to have a directly emergent core that is elaborated metaphorically." (#60 1245)

causation is best understood as an experiential gestalt

"We would like to suggest instead that causation is best understood as an experiential gestalt. A proper understanding of causation requires that it be viewed as a cluster of other components. But the cluster forms a gestalt—a whole that we human beings find more basic than the parts." (#60 1253)

the complex of properties occurring together is more basic to our experience than their separate occurrence

"They recur together over and over in action after action as we go through our daily lives. We experience them as a gestalt; that is, the complex of properties occurring together is more basic to our experience than their separate occurrence. Through their constant recurrence in our everyday functioning, the category of causation emerges with this complex of properties characterizing prototypical causations." (#60 1280)

prototypical direct manipulations

"Piaget has hypothesized that infants first learn about causation by realizing that they can directly manipulate objects around them—pull off their blankets, throw their bottles, drop toys. There is, in fact, a stage in which infants seem to "practice" these manipulations, e.g., they repeatedly drop their spoons. Such direct manipulations, even on the part of infants, involve certain shared features that characterize the notion of direct causation that is so integral a part of our constant everyday functioning in our environment—as when we flip light switches, button our shirts, open doors, etc. Though each of these actions is different, the overwhelming proportion of them share features of what we may call a "prototypical" or "paradigmatic" case of direct causation." (#60 1256)
"These shared features include: The agent has as a goal some change of state in the patient. The change of state is physical. The agent has a "plan" for carrying out this goal. The plan requires the agent's use of a motor program. The agent is in control of that motor program. The agent is primarily responsible for carrying out the plan. The agent is the energy source (i.e., the agent is directing his energies toward the patient), and the patient is the energy goal (i.e., the change in the patient is due to an external source of energy). The agent touches the patient either with his body or an instrument (i.e., there is a spatiotemporal overlap between what the agent does and the change in the patient). The agent successfully carries out the plan. The change in the patient is perceptible. The agent monitors the change in the patient through sensory perception. There is a single specific agent and a single specific patient." (#60 1261)
"(In physical causation the agent and patient are events, a physical law takes the place of plan, goal, and motor activity, and all of the peculiarly human aspects are factored out.)" (#60 1285)

MAKING is an instance of a directly emergent concept

"MAKING is an instance of a directly emergent concept, namely, DIRECT MANIPULATION, which is further elaborated by the metaphor THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE." (#60 1315)
"Simple instances of making an object (e.g., a paper airplane, a snowball, a sand castle) are all special cases of direct causation." (#60 1301)
"Another way we can conceptualize making is by elaborating on direct manipulation, using another metaphor: THE SUBSTANCE GOES INTO THE OBJECT." (#60 1317)
"In birth, an object (the baby) comes out of a container (the mother). At the same time, the mother's substance (her flesh and blood) are in the baby (the container object). The experience of birth (and also agricultural growth) provides a grounding for the general concept of CREATION, which has as its core the concept of MAKING a physical object but which extends to abstract entities as well." (#60 1332)

the application of the concept of causation to ever new domains of activity

"Our successful functioning in the world involves the application of the concept of causation to ever new domains of activity—through intention, planning, drawing inferences, etc. The concept is stable because we continue to function successfully in terms of it." (#60 1290)

causation is not a "primitive" in the usual building-block sense

"Though the concept of causation as we have characterized it is basic to human activity, it is not a "primitive" in the usual building-block sense, that is, it is not unanalyz-able and undecomposable. Since it is defined in terms of a prototype that is characterized by a recurrent complex of properties, our concept of causation is at once holistic, analyzable into those properties, and capable of a wide range of variation. The terms into which the causation prototype is analyzed (e.g., control, motor program, volition, etc.) are probably also characterized by prototype and capable of further analysis. This permits us to have concepts that are at once basic, holistic, and indefinitely analyzable." (#60 1294)

a mental or emotional state is viewed as causing an act or event

"there is another special case of CAUSATION which we conceptualize in terms of the EMERGENCE metaphor. This is the case where a mental or emotional state is viewed as causing an act or event" (#60 1348)
"Here the STATE (desperation, loneliness, etc.) is viewed as a container, and the act or event is viewed as an object that emerges from the container. The CAUSATION is viewed as the EMERGENCE of the EVENT from the STATE" (#60 1354)

the basic concepts of causation used in the physical and social sciences are primarily constituted by a system of nearly two dozen distinct metaphors

"Even the basic concepts of causation used in the physical and social sciences are primarily constituted by a system of nearly two dozen distinct metaphors, each with its own causal logic (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, chapter 11). Thus, causation can be conceptualized in terms of forced motion to a new location (as in, "Scientific developments have propelled us into the Digital Age"), the giving and taking of objects ("These vitamins will give you energy"), links ("Cancer has been linked to pesticide use"), motion along a path ("China is on the road to democracy, having taken the path of capitalism"), and so on. This discovery was particularly startling, even to us, because it challenged the widespread view that there is a single kind of causation with a single causal logic structuring the world." (#60 4076)