So, SP, is there a difference between the causal relationship between A and B in the two cases?

1- A: Grandfather B: Grandson

2- A: Your survival B: oxygen in the room

I don't care if you're bent on reducing hierarchical series into accidental ones. The question is fairly simple. Do you have enough capacity to have a simple metaphysical insight to realize that 1 and 2 are not exactly the same in regards to causal relations?

If you can tell there is a difference, congratulations, you might be able to understand what we sometimes call "continuous dependence" and also hierarchical series of causes.

If you pretend you can't tell the difference and instead force yourself to turn away from the "illusion" (which even if "illusory" would suffice for its validity, considering there's a clear conceptual difference involved), then, well, I've already said enough with regards to scientistic delusion. You're free to reject Aquinas's five ways on the basis of your bizarre assumptions. We don't agree with your assumption and we find the metaphysical analysis of dependence to be much more plausible than your assumption, so although you find your argument convincing, we don't. That's all.

@Miguel,

He already claims that dead relatives contribute a particular amount of force to the decendants golf swing.
Now he claims that the force cannot be measured and that no one can even come up with a formula to calculate how to meaure it, but is commited to that proposition.

It seems that he is not bothered by reductio ad absurdum.

@Miguel

So, SP, is there a difference between the causal relationship between A and B in the two cases?
1- A: Grandfather B: Grandson
2- A: Your survival B: oxygen in the room

Both are crude, naked eye, obsolete attempts at examining causality.

In all 4 instances you have lumped together a vast collection and assigned a title to this collection.

Your analytical approach is hopelessly vague compared to any modern scientific study of causality.

A grandfather is a temporal process of vast complexity, not a single cause or effect.
A grandson is a temporal process of vast complexity, not a single cause or effect.
A survival is a temporal process of vast complexity, not a single cause or effect.
A room full of oxygen is a temporal process of vast complexity, not a single cause or effect.

Until you learn how to analyze cause and effect you are not going to be able to address causal systems in any meaningful way.
 

"Rational argumentation by a "PhD" "mathematical physicist"

Oh the irony!

As anyone can check for himself, every objection that Stardusty posed that I bothered to respond, I responded on purely *physical grounds* (that is, I did not even touched any metaphysics) as not even amounting to a coherent argument and that, despite his delusional kookyness, he is completely clueless about physics. Since there is one thing that Stardusty cannot positively stand is a Christian knowing infinitely more physics than he does, and since he cannot rebut anything I have said, his consistent MO has been to respond that "Ah but you have not shown that the First Way is valid! Gotcha!" or some variation of similar misdirection, followed by whining how "I never present arguments", followed by suggesting that I am lying about my credentials (in another forum, he went beyond suggesting and actually said it in so many words and never retracted it). We even have the little gem "More likely you are a Brazilian kid who found that ID on line but is completely incapable of imitating the scientific capacities of a real mathematical physicist." As the cherry on top, he complains about the level of my "rational argumentation". And on and on it goes, like a merry go round, never leaving the same place.

There is a Tom Waits' song that I like particularly, it is called "The Piano Has Been Drinking". In it there is a line that describes him: "A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post". Adding how he is a dishonest scumbag, and he is figured out completely. Shame what human beings can turn into when they choose the Darkness over the Light, but there it is.

@RoamanJoe

If the table collapses, the cup falls. The distinction between these two causal relationships is clear.

It seems to be clear at the naked eye level of human perception, experience, and abstraction.  But that difference breaks down under closer examination and is of no value in considering the root processes of causation.

Even though they both involve temporal processes--like the constant motion of atoms in the table and cup--this does not mean that both causal relationships are the same.

Actually, yes it does, but the difference in time scales and distance scales leads to naked eye human experience and human abstraction to make distinctions that break down under closer examination.

When a molecule of water is in the cup it is vibrating about as part of the water-cup-table-Earth system wherein that water molecule is part of a vastly complex system of mutual causation.

Then water molecule flies off the surface and leaves the cup, just like the grandfather.  And just like the grandfather its past causal interactions are not undone by its departure from the defined system.

Just like the grandfather the water molecule interacts in the system temporally as long as it is a part of the system and it ceases to interact temporally when it is no longer part of the system.  The grandfather did no interact in just one moment, rather, he lived many years and did many things, then he died and his molecules disbursed. 

The same is true of the water, the cup, and the table, which will not last forever in those forms.  The water will evaporate, the cup will eventually be discarded and perhaps recycled, the table will eventually be discarded and will decompose.

In every temporal mutually causal system the members of that system interact according to the structure of the system until the members are temporally transported out of the system at which time the material goes elsewhere and interacts temporally with other material. When that happens the prior interactions are not undone. 

A causal series is always like that, just a series of processes with each interaction in the present moment.  Past interactions are in the past and cannot be undone.  Future interactions are not real, only imagined.  Simultaneity is the case only in the present moment.

Again, temporality does not entail an accidental causal series. An accidental causal series is one in which each member has a degree of causal independence, not continually relying on the earlier members for its causal efficacy or existence.

Which describes every causal series.  Human beings tend to anthropomorphize, or project, or assign titles to objects, lumping together a vast collection of temporally separated events as though they are one.  Closer examination of this shows that is an artifact of human abstraction.

So for instance, the grandson can still exist, move, function, even if his grandfather drops dead. The cup, however, cannot actualize its potential to exist one meter off the ground if the table is destroyed. Why? Because the cup is continually dependent on the table for its position.

The water-cup-table-Earth system is continually interacting with each other as a temporal process of mutual causation for as long as they have that particular arrangement.  When some other actor imparts forces to members of the system then the material in that system will continue to interact in mutual causation according to the structure of the next arrangement.

These are all cases of "accidental" causation.  Humans simply assign titles and make abstractions that give the illusion of somehow being "essential".