Causation and Explanation: A Story

Imagine the following scenarios: 

Scenario 1: while driving on the freeway, Fred loses control of the car as it cruises over an icy patch. The car crashes into the sidewall causes serious damage to Fred and his car. 

Scenario 2: while driving on the freeway, Amelia retains control of the car as it cruises over an icy patch. The car continues on the same trajectory and Amelia and the car arrive safely to their destination.

A Twist:all of the conditions that were present as Fred drove over the icy patch were present when Amelia drove over the icy patch, and there was no condition present while Amelia drove over the icy patch that was not present when Fred drove over the icy patch. 

Put differently: scenario 1 and scenario 2 are identical down to the movement of every sub-atomic particle and up to the movement of every hair on the heads of Fred and Amelia. The scenarios are literally indistinguishable up to the point of Fred losing control and Amelia retaining control. Both of their hands are in the exact same positions, holding the wheel with the exact same strength, their eyes are on the exact same thing, their cars are identical in every feature, they are traveling at the exact same rate, the ice is the exact same shape, thickness, texture, etc etc etc. Nevertheless, Fred loses control of the car and Amelia does not.

Question: is the above possible? 

Comments

  1. M. E. G.February 12, 2019 at 7:18 AM

    According to Hempel, no, it should not be possible. If everything is the same, you should be able to deduce the same results of the car on the ice. However, even in controlled scientific situations, different results can occur, which is why multiple trials are needed to determine a law. However, if you can confirm every single thing was the exact same, it should not be possible. - Maddy

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  2. DAFebruary 12, 2019 at 9:27 AM

    Excellent! On Hempel's DN model of scientific explanation that is absolutely right. That's a nice connection to make. What about on Hempel's ISN model? Or Salmon's account?

    And what do you think?

    ReplyDelete
  3. ZachFebruary 12, 2019 at 9:29 AM

    Like Maddy said, no, according to the deductive nomological model, the exact circumstances and laws should have guaranteed the same outcome. I can deduce (infer?) that at least one of the circumstances of scenario 1 was different from from scenario 2 because of the different outcome. If absolutely none of the circumstances changed, wouldn't there only be one scenario? It wouldn't be possible to have two exact scenarios with the same circumstances since they would be identical, right? x=y y=z so z=x?

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