Seems to me you’re conflating different concepts:
“being the reason for” and “being the cause of”:
compare what an enemy of determinism could say: “we have no reason to listen to you if your theory is false and no reason to listen if it’s true either”. Now what?
Let’s drop abstract truth-seeking for a moment and talk about instrumental values instead.
Believing in causality is useful in a causal world and neutral in an acausal one. Disbelieving in causality is harmful in a causal world and likewise neutral in an acausal one. So, if you assign nonzero credence to the existence of causality (as you implied in a comment above: “why does everybody assume I’m a die-hard believer?”), you’d do better by increasing this credence to 100%, because doing so has positive utility in the causal world (to which you have assigned nonzero credence) and doesn’t matter in the acausal one.
I would say, “increasing this credence toward 100%”—without mathematical proof that the familiar sort of causation is the only such scheme that is feasible, absolute certainty is (slightly) risky. (Even with such proof, it is risky—proofs aren’t perfect guarantees.)
I can’t parse your comment. Are you saying that, conditioned on your theory being true, our beliefs “should” somehow causally update in response to your arguments? That’s obviously false.
Seems to me you’re conflating different concepts: “being the reason for” and “being the cause of”:
compare what an enemy of determinism could say: “we have no reason to listen to you if your theory is false and no reason to listen if it’s true either”. Now what?
Let’s drop abstract truth-seeking for a moment and talk about instrumental values instead.
Believing in causality is useful in a causal world and neutral in an acausal one. Disbelieving in causality is harmful in a causal world and likewise neutral in an acausal one. So, if you assign nonzero credence to the existence of causality (as you implied in a comment above: “why does everybody assume I’m a die-hard believer?”), you’d do better by increasing this credence to 100%, because doing so has positive utility in the causal world (to which you have assigned nonzero credence) and doesn’t matter in the acausal one.
Well, if you stipulate that “abstract truth-seeking” has nothing whatsoever to do with my getting along in the world, then you’re right I guess.
I would say, “increasing this credence toward 100%”—without mathematical proof that the familiar sort of causation is the only such scheme that is feasible, absolute certainty is (slightly) risky. (Even with such proof, it is risky—proofs aren’t perfect guarantees.)
I can’t parse your comment. Are you saying that, conditioned on your theory being true, our beliefs “should” somehow causally update in response to your arguments? That’s obviously false.