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A Basic Nietzschean Model in Lieu of the Causal Maxim

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Abstract

Causal knowledge unquestionably provides useful means to describe, explain and predict both natural and daily phenomena. This article addresses whether causality as such may not be ontologically primary and looks for an alternative fundamental mechanism encapsulating the information load of the causal framework. A probabilistic process view of reality asserting the struggle of natural forces is considered along with lines quoted from Nietzsche’s posthumously published notebooks and published work. Examples from scientific discoveries, in particular neurosciences, echoing his ontology are provided. Furthermore, I propose a basic number game algorithm to illustrate and model the struggle of forces leading to causal inferences for an external observer. Nietzschean dynamic ontology involving the ceaseless struggle of will-to-power units accords with the emergentist approach to causation, which has been principally employed by the scientists working under the fields of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and complex dynamical systems.

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Notes

  1. The majority of quotations from Nietzsche in this text are from Nietzsche (2017), a recent translation of selections from his notebooks in the 1880s. I will denote WTP and the corresponding passage number while referring to them.

  2. Despite Nietzsche’s own disclaimer, I will use “will-to-power” and “force” interchangeably. Aside from Nietzsche’s own words, I will only use the term “force-centers” to signify the units of will-to-power throughout this text for the sake of consistency. Force in plural form will indicate force-centers and their assemblages in the text.

  3. This translation was more sound; this passage was taken for that reason from Nietzsche (2003/2006) corresponding to Notebook 38[12], 1885.

  4. I have preferred to use the translation of this passage given by Rayman (2016), since it is more literal.

  5. See, for example, the essay “Eat Rat, Make New Body: Easy Stuff for Pythons”, published in The New York Times, 22/05/2020 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/science/pythons-metabolism-animals-digestion.html).

  6. One of the chief contemporary neuroscientists, György Buzsáki explains how minor and local perturbations may induce totally unexpected outputs in the brain indicating its inherent irregular and acausal nature (Buzsáki, 2019). He lists several neuroscientific facts in this regard, one of which is on parkinsonian motor symptoms: “Decreased dopamine is a necessary but not always sufficient condition for the symptoms to occur, and similar symptoms may also occur in the absence of dopamine dysfunction.” According to Buzsáki, since brains are non-linear complex self-organizing dynamical systems, “events are not caused but emerge from the interaction of multiple elements.”

  7. The most natural symmetric probability density function to choose is Gaussian when one considers the “central limit theorem” of probability theory in order to represent a normal but diverse background of many forces. One is more liberal to choose D; an exemplary intuitive choice could be \(D=c\frac{x-y}{x+y}\), where c is any appropriate constant value.

  8. A plain software code for the game was written and is available upon request from me.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Timothy West, Igor Mapelli and M. Hilmi Demir for their comments on the first draft of the article. I am thankful to Gökçe Gökalp, Pınar Varol and Leslie Demir for proofreading the article.

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  1. Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Tolga Esat Özkurt

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Özkurt, T.E. A Basic Nietzschean Model in Lieu of the Causal Maxim. Philosophia 50, 1343–1363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00430-7

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