Topics in Talmudic Logic, Lesson 19

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🔗 Link to the original lecture

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[0:02] Returning to the question of time and two time axes
[1:37] The three components of causality: time, condition, physics
[4:12] The philosophical discussion: Hume and the physical component
[7:45] Physics and the connection between force and acceleration
[11:25] The logical component: necessary vs. sufficient condition
[17:44] Properties of logic: symmetry and uniqueness
[20:03] Steinitz’s claim about a causal chain
[25:04] Breaking down the claim and the importance of the three components
[32:49] Causality versus a logical condition
[34:37] The connection between a logical condition and time
[37:34] Logical determinism and indifference to time
[39:56] Bertrand Russell’s argument about the future
[42:27] The story of Oedipus and deterministic fixities
[47:21] The truth of future statements and their fixedness
[57:42] Definition versus claim – what determines truth?
[1:00:23] Divine knowledge and free choices
[1:01:37] The case of Moses and the Egyptian in the portion of Shemot
[1:05:58] Understanding the difference between prophecy and determinism
[1:12:08] The influence of the future on the present – introduction
[1:13:35] Example: information exists but is unknown
[1:15:05] Rain conditions and their effect on the law
[1:20:13] Free choice and presenting the third case
[1:23:26] The future event as the source of a current state
[1:25:07] Summary of the situations and continuation of the study

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time we started with the topic of the logic of time. The goal, of course, is to get to halakhic / of Jewish law issues, but we’re still in the middle of the general introduction. I spoke a bit about the paradoxes involved in the concept of time travel, I spoke about a duplication of time axes. If we want to talk about time flowing slowly or quickly, forward or backward, then we have to assume another axis underlying the flow, on top of which the flow takes place, and that brings us to a model of two time axes. And I said that if we assume two axes of time—and I’ll come back to this—then all these concepts start to make sense. That still doesn’t mean it can be done, but it turns it from a logical question into a physical question. Now the question is whether it’s possible or impossible, but it’s already defined; it’s something clear, we know what we’re talking about. After that I spoke about the concept of causality. I said that people connect the concept of causality to the concept of time, because a causal relation between events means that event A—say event A is the cause of event B—one of the characteristics of the causal relation is that event A has to appear before event B. In other words, the time axis is one of the components that defines a causal relation. But last time, in the last part of the previous session, I spoke about the fact that there are two other necessary components in order to define a causal relation: there is the component of time, meaning the cause precedes the effect; there is the component of condition, that if the cause happened then the effect happens, the correlation; and there is the third component, the component of physical causation, the physical component—that event A is not only such that if A happened then B happens, but that because of A, or A brings about B, so because of A, B happened. I explained the difference. I said that if, for example, I’m looking at two clocks, I can say that if clock A shows three o’clock, then clock B also shows three o’clock. So the relation of if-then, the conditional relation, the correlation, exists. But you can’t say that one of them is the cause of the other. The second clock shows three o’clock not because the first clock shows three o’clock. That’s only an if-then relation; it’s not a relation of because, that this happened because of that. Okay? And in order to define causality, it’s not enough for us to have an if-then relation; we also need a relation of causation, or what I called the physical component. So these are basically three components: the component of time, the logical component—the condition—and the physical component. I tried to show, through the sugya of negligence at the outset and unavoidable accident at the end, three types of claims against a guardian: one of them is a claim based only on temporal priority, the second on temporal priority and conditionality, and the third is when there is also legal responsibility, meaning causation—his action caused the damage, and therefore I come to him with complaints. That was overall just an illustration of these three components. Now I want to speak a little about the logical component. Maybe before that I’ll say a word about the physical component. And I think I mentioned this—I’m no longer completely sure I remember everything I said—but the physical component is actually not fully agreed upon among philosophers. In my opinion it’s agreed upon by anyone who has common sense, but philosophers, as is well known, don’t have much of that, so philosophers don’t always agree about this. David Hume, for example, argues that the causal relation does not include a physical component. He basically says that only the temporal component and the conditional component are what constitute the causal relation. Why? Because Hume was an empiricist. Empiricists are people who assume that only things we have observed can be accepted. Okay? Only observation is a means for making claims about the world, or knowing something, or saying something about the world. The fact that I think in a certain way doesn’t say anything about whether the world behaves that way or not, right? That’s rationalism, as opposed to empiricism: rationalism says that if I think in a certain way, it sounds logical to me, then probably that’s also what happens in the world. But empiricism is more sober; it says that just because I think in a certain way doesn’t prove anything. The world may operate differently. Therefore, for example, David Hume says regarding causality: after all, we have no observational source from which the causal relation emerges. How can we know, for instance, that when you kick a ball, the ball flies? You simply see it. Every time someone kicks a ball, afterward the ball flies. But what we can see is that first the kick happened and afterward the ball flew. That’s the temporal part. We can see that whenever I kick a ball, afterward the ball flies. That’s the logical part. If you kick it, then the ball flies. But that the kick caused the flight of the ball, that it produced that result—how do you know that? Maybe it just always happens that this comes after that. Who said that the kick is the causal factor in the ball’s flight? There is no observational source for that. Observation can’t give us that. So if you’re an empiricist, someone who sticks only to observations, then you say okay, so in fact the causal relation is only a mode of thought of ours, but it doesn’t really exist in the world. At least there’s no reason to assume it exists in the world. And so, says David Hume, let’s get rid of this illusion. A causal relation between two events is made up of time and logic, without physics. And I said that, ironically, specifically in the scientific, physical world, they adopt Hume’s definition of causality, the definition that does not include a physical component. I think I really did speak about this. I said that when, for example, we have Newton’s second law, F=MA, the equation has two sides; you can also write MA=F. There are no rules about the order in which you write the equation. So I can’t know from the equation who is the cause and who is the effect. Does applying force to a body cause its acceleration, or maybe its acceleration causes a force to act on it? How do I know what is the cause and what is the effect? Common sense says that force is the cause and acceleration is the result. If you apply force to something, it starts moving, right? It’s not that because it started moving, therefore a force acted on it. But from the standpoint of the equations of physics, the equation is symmetric. Force equals acceleration. There’s no preference for either one; there’s no directionality here telling me that it goes from force to acceleration or from acceleration to force. And because of the symmetry of equality, this basically means that physics cannot tell me who is the cause and who is the effect. Physics only points to correlation. And therefore, from the standpoint of physics, you can determine that if there is force there is acceleration, or if there is acceleration there is force, but you cannot determine who is the cause, who is the reason, and who is the effect. In field theory, by the way, yes, but in mechanics as it is known, say, to high school students, you can’t. And so what comes out is something a bit absurd: in the physical world, the accepted definition of causality is precisely that definition which removes the physical component from the definition of causality. Causality is defined as: A is defined as the cause of B if B always happens after A. That’s the definition of causality in physics. There’s no definition that A is the producer, because that definition can’t be checked observationally; it’s not a scientific definition. How do I know that A causes B? What I know is that after A, B happens, that’s all. How do I know A is the cause? That’s my conjecture or my analysis or my way of thinking. It’s not something I can extract from observation. Therefore, says David Hume, the third part has to be removed from the definition of causality. And that’s a very strange thing, because it basically means that as soon as there are two events between which there is correlation, one can define one as the cause of the other. For example, when the sun rises I go to work, and you, say, a quarter of an hour later also go to work—say I go to work at seven and you go to work at seven fifteen, okay? Or I go to work at sunrise and you go to work a quarter of an hour after sunrise. Okay? So one could say that my going to work is the cause of your going to work. Because whenever I do it, afterward you do it. So the temporal relation exists, the logical relation exists, but obviously something very fundamental is missing here in order to define this relation as causal. There is no connection, no causation, between my going to work and your going to work. At most you could say that there is a third event, sunrise, that caused these two events, that synchronizes them or determines some relation between them. But there’s no direct relation between the two events. Event A cannot be defined as the cause of event B if it doesn’t bring it about. And here neither of these events brings about the second event. Therefore the Humean definition, Hume’s definition of causality, without the physical component, is a very problematic definition. On the other hand, he asks a good question: so where do we know the third component from? If it doesn’t come from observation, then how do we know it? Think about the principle of causality. The principle of causality says that everything that happened has a cause. Okay, but what does cause mean? If I accept Hume’s definition, then obviously everything that happened has a cause. Everything that happened had something that happened before it. Okay, and that’s a cause? When you say cause you expect something that brings about the event for which you’re seeking a cause, right? That’s the principle of causality. And here again David Hume asks: how do you know that this is really true? We have no observational evidence that for every event there is something that brings it about. We have observational evidence that every such event was preceded by another event, that always beforehand the same type of event occurred, but the relation of causation between them has no observational source. Therefore this really is a weighty philosophical question, but I’m not dealing here entirely with philosophy, so from my perspective I assume the causal relation of common sense, which means also the physical component, not only the temporal and logical components. Now let’s speak about the logical component. In the logical component there is—and maybe I mentioned this too, I no longer remember—a dispute among philosophers. There are two conceptions regarding the logical component. One conception says that the cause has to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the effect. The second view says that the condition has to be—the cause, sorry—has to be a sufficient condition for the effect, not necessary but sufficient. There is no approach, by the way, that says that the cause has to be a necessary condition for the effect. There is no such philosophical view. It has to be sufficient. The question is whether it is necessary and sufficient, or whether it is enough that it be sufficient. In other words, those are the two possibilities. What does that mean? Let’s explain a bit what a necessary condition and a sufficient condition are. A necessary condition—say if I say that A is necessary for B, a necessary condition for B—the meaning is that if B occurred, then clearly A happened beforehand. Okay? Necessary—without it B would not have happened. When I say that A is necessary for B, the meaning is that without A, B cannot happen. That’s what it means that A is necessary for B. So that means that if B happened, then clearly A was before it, because otherwise B simply would not have happened. But it’s not correct to say that if A happens, then B will certainly happen. It’s necessary, but not sufficient. Okay? Not every time there is A, there is B. For example, there is rain and there are clouds. Are clouds a sufficient condition for rain, a necessary condition for rain, or both necessary and sufficient? What do you say?

[Speaker C] Necessary. Without clouds there won’t be rain. And it’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sufficient?

[Speaker C] No, because there are other things happening there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, things happening there?

[Speaker C] There’s movement between the clouds, all kinds of chemical processes taking place there, evaporation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore what? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker C] Therefore it’s not a sufficient condition. It’s necessary, but other things also have to happen in order for it really to rain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In other words, there can be a situation with clouds and no rain.

[Speaker C] Exactly, therefore it’s not sufficient.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay? Clouds are not a sufficient condition for rain. Why? Because a sufficient condition means that if it happened, that’s enough for us to know that the other one will happen too, right? Sufficient—you don’t need anything else, it itself is enough. That’s not true of clouds. The fact that there are clouds is not a sufficient condition for there to be rain, because there are situations with clouds where no rain falls. On the other hand, there’s never a case—if there was rain, then obviously there are clouds, right? That means clouds are a necessary condition for rain; without them, rain cannot happen, but they are not a sufficient condition. Okay? What about rain in relation to clouds?

[Speaker D] If it rained, then before that there were clouds.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So is rain sufficient or necessary for clouds, or both? Wait, both?

[Speaker D] Both.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning you’re saying that if it rained then clearly there are clouds. Is it possible—

[Speaker D] Is it possible—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is it possible to have clouds without rain?

[Speaker D] That’s true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then how is rain a necessary condition for clouds? Saying that rain is a necessary condition for clouds means that it can’t be that there is rain without clouds beforehand.

[Speaker E] It can’t be that it rains without there being clouds beforehand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t—that only says that rain is sufficient for clouds, not necessary for clouds. If you tell me there is rain, that’s enough for me to know there were clouds, but it’s not necessary for there to be clouds, because there can be a situation with clouds without there having been rain. The existence of rain is not necessary for the conclusion that there are clouds, right? The conclusion that there are clouds can be true even without rain. The truth is that rain is sufficient for clouds, and clouds are necessary for rain.

[Speaker F] It’s not necessary. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s sufficient but not necessary. And clouds are necessary but not sufficient for rain. Right? By the way, it’s always like that. If A is necessary for B, then B is sufficient for A, and vice versa. The relation always flips. It’s always like that. Work through the logic and you’ll see it has to be that way. Now, let’s try for a moment to understand what this means regarding causality. If I say that the cause is a sufficient condition for the effect, the meaning is that if the cause happened—I know the cause happened—I don’t need to know anything else, I already know that the effect will happen. Right? That’s what it means that it is sufficient. If I were to say that the cause is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the effect, then all that means is that if there was an effect, clearly beforehand there was the cause, but the fact that there is a cause still doesn’t mean the effect will happen. Therefore a necessary condition does not describe the causal relation very well. That’s why there is no philosophical approach that sees the cause as a necessary condition for the effect, necessary and not sufficient. A sufficient condition, yes. Sufficient means: the cause happened, clearly the effect will happen. Okay? But it’s not a necessary condition. But there is a philosophical approach that says the condition has to be necessary and sufficient. And sufficient, certainly—without sufficiency there is no causality. Sufficiency is definitely there. But maybe it is both necessary and sufficient. What does that mean? That the cause—given the cause, the effect must occur; if the effect occurred, then necessarily before it there was the cause. Okay? Both things are true in both directions. That is the second conception. Now let’s try to do a little exercise, a little logical exercise. A necessary and sufficient condition—something that is both necessary and sufficient—has two properties. One property is symmetry. If A is necessary and sufficient for B, then B is necessary and sufficient for A. That is very easy to prove, because if A is necessary for B, then B is sufficient for A. And if A is sufficient for B, then B is necessary for A, right? We saw that with the clouds and rain. So if A, in relation to B, is both, then in reverse B, in relation to A, is also both, right? The sufficiency of one produces the necessity of the other, and the necessity of this one produces the sufficiency of the other. So if it is both necessary and sufficient, then the other is also both necessary and sufficient. Agreed? In other words, to say that A is a necessary and sufficient condition for B is a symmetric relation. This is what in logic is called equivalence. That is, A is equivalent to B, or a two-way implication. A implies B, and B implies A. Okay? That’s what is called a necessary and sufficient condition. But there is another characteristic of a necessary and sufficient condition, and that is uniqueness. If A is a necessary and sufficient condition for B, then there cannot also be C that is a necessary and sufficient condition for B. Why not?

[Speaker G] Because if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If that were possible, suppose C were necessary and sufficient for B. Then suppose C happened and A did not happen. Then B has to be true, right? Because C is sufficient. So B must have been. But if B was, then it can’t be that it happened without A, because A is necessary for B. Exactly. So A also had to happen. In other words, there cannot be two conditions each of which by itself is necessary and sufficient for B. In other words, the relation of necessary and sufficient between events is both symmetric and unique. If A is a necessary and sufficient condition for B, then B is a necessary and sufficient condition for A, and if A is necessary and sufficient for B, there is nothing else that is necessary and sufficient for B, only A. Okay? Those are two facts. Two logical facts that have to be kept in mind in the background. Now our government friend, Yuval Steinitz—I don’t know what minister he is today, I no longer follow—claims that if so, then he has a proof against the interpretation of causality that says causality is a necessary and sufficient condition. This is in his book Tree of Knowledge, in the second part—there are three parts there—in the second part he deals with causality. And he says: this interpretation, that A is the cause of B, meaning it is a necessary and sufficient condition for B, cannot be. Let’s prove it. We generally assume that a causal chain can be as long as you like—say A caused B, B caused C, C caused D, a causal chain that continues. Let’s take a causal chain of length three. A is the cause of B, B is the cause of C, okay? Says Steinitz: according to the conception that causality is a necessary and sufficient condition, there is no such chain. Why? Because let’s assume a cause is a necessary and sufficient condition. Then A is a necessary and sufficient condition for B, and B is necessary and sufficient for C, right?

[Speaker B] Now from the symmetry—wait—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From the symmetry it follows: A is necessary and sufficient for B, and C is also necessary and sufficient for B, right? Because wait, wait, one second, one second. B is necessary and sufficient for C, therefore C is necessary and sufficient for B because of symmetry, right? But then it turns out that B has two necessary and sufficient conditions, both A and C. But we said that necessary and sufficient is a unique condition. In other words, if I take into account both the property of symmetry of the necessary-and-sufficient condition and the property of uniqueness, that means there cannot be a chain of length three, a causal chain of length three. That’s what he claims. Do you understand what I’m saying?

[Speaker H] Yes, that’s also what you said two minutes ago regardless of him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I stated the characteristics, but now he says let’s take this—and it’s neither mine nor his, these are well-known things—but he says let’s take these two characteristics and show you that there cannot be a causal chain of length three if you interpret cause as a necessary and sufficient condition. If cause means a sufficient condition, then there’s no problem. If it’s a sufficient condition, then A is sufficient for B, B is sufficient for C, C is sufficient for D, everything is fine, no problem at all. Because here there is no symmetry, no uniqueness, no nothing, everything is fine. But if the interpretation is that causality is necessity and sufficiency together, then both symmetry and uniqueness must hold. But if so, then a causal chain can only be of length two. A is the cause of B, that’s it, and B is the cause of A. The two are just that; it can’t continue to C, D, and E. Because if it continues to C, then either the symmetry breaks or the uniqueness breaks. They can’t both hold. That is supposedly his proof, a logically perfect proof—he gets very excited about it there in the book. He also published an article or articles about it, I don’t know. But of course it’s complete nonsense. It’s not true. Why is it not true? First of all, just use common sense. We said philosophers have a bit of a problem there. I don’t remember who said this, maybe Oscar Wilde, I don’t remember, that there are things so stupid that only intellectuals can say them. Sometimes philosophers say such nonsense because they are simply captive to their logical conceptions and they forget to leave a little common sense on the side. First of all, let’s apply common sense for a moment. Even suppose the argument is correct—let’s check what it says, what conclusion actually comes out of it. Basically, the conclusion that comes out is this: suppose I say that the relation between A and B is necessary and sufficient, A is the cause of B and the interpretation is that it is necessary and sufficient—what does that mean? There cannot be another cause of B. Okay. What? Is it really sensible that B cannot be necessary and sufficient for C? Obviously it can. Why not? So only A can cause B, and only B can cause C, and only C can cause D, and so on. What’s the problem? I don’t understand. Do you want to tell me that this logical pilpul actually means that there cannot be two causes for the same thing? Even just on the conceptual level it’s strange, because it means that from a logical consideration we derive a conclusion about reality. That’s very odd. That a logical consideration should tell us something about reality, should give us information about reality. Usually logic is empty. It says: if you have such-and-such a fact, it’s connected to such-and-such a fact, but I can’t derive information about reality from pure logic alone. That’s strange—strange, or actually impossible. So how, nevertheless, should this be understood? Look, I think his mistake comes from the fact that he ignores the complexity of the causal relation. He treats causality as though it were pure logic. But in the concept of causality there are two more components beyond the logical component: the temporal component and the physical component. Right? Now when I say A is the cause of B, and B is the cause of C, Steinitz says: by that you also said that C is the cause of B. Because if cause is a necessary and sufficient condition, then it has to be symmetric. So this is the kind of nonsense he says. C cannot be the cause of B because C appears in time after B. Therefore it also cannot physically produce B because it came into being after it. Symmetry characterizes only the logical component. But causality, beyond the logical component, also contains the temporal component and the physical component. So even if A is the cause of B and B is the cause of C, and even if from a logical standpoint it follows that C is a necessary and sufficient condition for B, that still does not mean that C is the cause of B. It is only a necessary and sufficient condition for B; it is not the cause of B because it appears after it and does not bring it about. And what is the mistake? A very simple mistake. Let’s assume there is a causal chain of length three, and each component of it is necessary and sufficient for the one that follows it. So now when I ask myself, not the question who is the cause of B, but what is the necessary and sufficient condition for B, given that we have a causal chain of length three—now I ask you a logical question: what is the necessary and sufficient condition for B?

[Speaker F] A, let’s say? A?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t agree. A is before it and C is after it.

[Speaker F] A is before it, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A is before it and C is after it; the two together constitute the necessary and sufficient condition for B. There cannot be B without A before it and C after it, and there cannot be A and after it C if there is no B in the middle. So the relation between B and A before it plus C after it is a relation of symmetry, symmetric on the logical level. Each of them is necessary and sufficient for the other. But of course you cannot say that A before it and C after it—that A before it and C after it is the cause of B, because the cause has to be before the effect.

[Speaker B] Exactly, it doesn’t work, it’s contradictory.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean? It means that the logical analysis of the concept of causality is a failure. And Steinitz thought that cause is like if. Cause means a necessary and sufficient condition. But notice: if you think that cause is a necessary and sufficient condition, then you are also ignoring the concept of time. Because after all B appears after A, so B too can be the cause of A. How? It appears after it. It is indeed necessary and sufficient for A, but it cannot be its cause because it appears afterward. Okay? Steinitz, by mistake, instead of focusing on the logical plane, moves to the physical plane, to the plane of causality, but that’s a mistake. Actually, if we want to look—look, for example, let’s take a concrete example. There were clouds, rain fell, and as a result grass grew from the ground. Okay? And let’s say each of these conditions is necessary and sufficient for the one that follows it. Take a concrete example. That’s not true, by the way—clouds are not a necessary and sufficient condition for rain, and rain is not necessary and sufficient for the growth of grass—but it doesn’t matter. At the moment I’m assuming it just for the sake of illustration. Okay? So let’s remember: A is the clouds, B is the rainfall, C is the growth of the grass. Okay? And I’m assuming for the sake of discussion that each one is a necessary and sufficient condition for the one that follows it. Is there any problem with that? I don’t see any problem. But wait, how can that be? Then it comes out that both the grass and the clouds are conditions—or causes—of the rainfall. Both the clouds and the grass, right? Because both are necessary and sufficient conditions for the rainfall. No. The combination of the two is necessary and sufficient for the rainfall. The fact that there were clouds beforehand and there is grass afterward—that is the necessary and sufficient condition for there having been rain. The combination of them together is the necessary and sufficient condition. And then there is no problem at all. Rain too is necessary and sufficient for there having been clouds before, and the grass afterward—they are necessary and sufficient for the rainfall. A necessary and sufficient condition—what happens is, you can see A as necessary and sufficient for B, but if B is necessary and sufficient for C, then that means C will also always be in the picture. It cannot be that there is only A and after it B and that’s it, because necessarily C will come afterward too. So if you want the full necessary and sufficient condition for B, you have to take into account both A before it and C after it. Together they constitute a necessary and sufficient condition. The only thing is that Steinitz mixes the logical analysis with the philosophical analysis of the concept of cause. The concept of cause does not contain only the logical component; it also contains the temporal component and the physical component. And from the standpoint of time and physics, C cannot be the cause of B; it appears after it. It is indeed a condition for B, because a condition is indifferent to time. A condition can also work backward, right? I can say that the grass is necessary and sufficient for the rain. There’s no problem with that, even though the grass grows only after the rain has fallen. Because I haven’t said that the grass is the cause of the clouds. This is conditionality. A logical conditional says: if this happened, then this will also happen, or this also happened in the past. That’s all; I don’t care, I’m not talking about the causal relation. The causal relation also wants temporal priority and that the cause bring about the effect. So that already goes beyond logic; it adds two more components. Logic is completely indifferent to the concept of time.

[Speaker I] Why is that actually? What? Why is that a sufficient condition, what you said? Again? I didn’t understand why grass is also a sufficient condition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s for the sake of the example, and at the moment I’m assuming—assume a new physics, or a new biology if you like, okay? I’m assuming that whenever there is rain there are clouds, and whenever there is rain the grass grows. Only for the sake of illustration, in order to see that what Steinitz says is not correct. That is, I’m claiming that such a situation is possible. I’m not claiming that this is the correct state of affairs, only that such a situation is possible. Steinitz claims there is no such thing, such a situation is impossible, a chain of length three of necessary and sufficient conditions. And I say there is no problem at all; of course it is possible. Why?

[Speaker J] But a condition is not causality. Right. There is a difference between causality and a condition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. And the condition for B is A plus C. The cause of B is only A. Why? Because A is definitely one of the components in the necessary and sufficient conditions for B. But it is not the whole necessary and sufficient condition for B; C afterward also has to be added in order to create here a complete necessary and sufficient condition for B. After B, C will always appear as well. That doesn’t mean that B has two causes; it has one cause, only A; it’s just that afterward C will always appear. Right, whenever there was B, before it there was A and after it there will be C. That’s true. What is inconsistent about that? Everything is fine. Therefore this paradox is nonsense. Clearly it’s not true. The question whether causality is a sufficient condition or a necessary and sufficient condition is a good question. I tend to think it is only sufficient, not necessary and sufficient. In that sense Steinitz is right, but the proof he brought for it is not correct. Okay? Why was this important to me? First of all, in order to sharpen the importance of relating to all the components of the concept of cause, and not seeing cause as a synonym for condition. It’s not the same thing. And second, to show you that logic is indifferent to time. The concept of causality contains within it the concept of time. The cause always precedes the effect in time. Logic is indifferent to time. I said earlier: I can absolutely say that rain is a sufficient condition for clouds, even though rain comes after the clouds, if it comes. Right? Because by that I have not said that rain is the cause of the clouds. This is conditionality. Logical conditionality says: if A, then B. I don’t care whether A happened first and then B happened; that’s not what it means. Here, I’m saying: if there is rain, then there were clouds. The clouds came first.

[Speaker K] Look, the physical equations also work on that same principle of logical cause: F equals MA, MA equals F.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it describes only the logical relation, not the causal relation. An equation, because it is symmetric, does not describe the causal relation; it describes the relation. Yes, you know all those jokes about failures of correlation. Yes, you shouldn’t go on a diet, because everyone who goes on a diet is fat. What’s the problem here? It’s true that everyone who goes on a diet is fat. But it’s not true that the diet causes the fatness; rather the opposite, the fatness causes the diet. Because you’re fat you go on a diet, not because you go on a diet you become fat. But it is true to say that everyone who goes on a diet is fat. The logical relation between the two things is not necessarily connected to the causal relation. Causality goes from the earlier to the later, from the cause to what is caused, from the cause to the effect. The logical relation is indifferent to the direction of the time axis. The logical relation tells you: if A then B. I don’t care whether A is the cause or B is the cause, that makes no difference to me; I only know that there is a relation between them. And by the way, this is often where fallacies come from—what do you mean often, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered even one example of a scientific study reported in the media that did not suffer from this fallacy. Not one example have I heard, out of hundreds of examples, not one, where they don’t publish data and explain: here you see that coffee causes cancer, because in the population of coffee drinkers there is more cancer. But maybe it’s because people with cancer have a greater tendency to drink coffee? How do you know the direction of the influence? All you know how to do is correlate. This is a joke among statisticians, right? Correlation is not causation. The fact that you found a correlation between two variables does not yet mean that one is the cause of the other, or that the second is the cause of the first either. Maybe they have some third thing that is the cause of both of them? Like with the sun and going to work that I mentioned earlier. Our world is full of these fallacies, because people mix up the logical plane with the time axis. The logical plane is not connected to time, and not to causality either. Causality contains the component of time and the component of logic, but it is not only the component of time and logic. There are three components here, which together create the causal relation. You need all three of them in order for the causal relation to work. Now I want to show you another angle, the indifference of logic to the time axis. Do you know the argument called logical determinism? Logical determinism is basically an argument that comes to prove the claim that the world is deterministic. A deterministic world means that what happens had to happen. There is no other option; given certain circumstances, what will happen is dictated unambiguously in advance. There is no possibility that two things can happen given certain circumstances. That is the deterministic conception. A libertarian conception says that even if the given circumstances are a certain X, it can still happen that A occurs and it can still happen that B occurs. There is freedom in the system; the system does not dictate, the present state does not dictate the continuation. There can be several continuations to the same present state. When I say that a person chooses freely, what am I basically saying? Given that his current state is X, two paths are still open before him: he can do A and he can do B. The determinist claims no. Given that the person’s current state is X, that dictates what he will do in the next moment. A, B, I don’t know, but it dictates it. There are not two possibilities of what he can do, or there are not two things he can do out of the same physical state. That is determinism. Determinism says that the laws of nature dictate everything all the time: tell me what the state is now and I’ll tell you what the state will be in another moment, and after that in another moment, and so on. As Laplace once said—in our language today; he didn’t know what a computer was—if you give me a computer with sufficiently strong computational power, I will tell you what will happen until the end of all generations. I will gather the data about what is happening now; the moment I know all the data about every electron and every thing that exists now in reality, I will tell you what will happen until the end of all generations. It’s only a question of calculation. That is a deterministic conception. A libertarian conception—liberty means freedom—a conception that says there is freedom, means that even if you give me all the circumstances, I still have the freedom to do A or do B. That is libertarianism. Now there is an argument raised in favor of logical determinism. This argument appears in one form or another in an article by Bertrand Russell. He argues the following claim: Aristotle asked, he looked at the following question: will a naval battle take place next year? Once, say, somewhere in the world, or between Britain and France. Okay? Will there be a naval battle next year between Britain and France? We don’t know because it’s about next year. If we live to next year, then of course we’ll know—either there was a naval battle or there wasn’t a naval battle. We’ll be able to know. The question is how I relate today to the truth value of the sentence before it occurs. Suppose when I say: next year there will be a naval battle between Britain and France—what is the truth value? Is that sentence true or false? Today. After the fact we’ll be able to determine whether it’s true or false. I don’t know, that doesn’t matter, but is it true or false? Either it’s true or it’s false. The fact that I don’t know is simply because I don’t know. There are many facts I don’t know, not only facts about the future—

[Speaker L] There are also facts—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About the present, I don’t know. Right? But whether this statement is true or false, I don’t know right now. It’ll become clear to me next year, but when it becomes clear next year, it’ll become clear that already today it was so. Say that if next year a naval battle really does take place, then that means that already today this statement was true; I just didn’t know it. Agreed? Yes. Right? So basically that means that the statement, “next year there will be a naval battle between Britain and France”—assuming it happens—that statement is already true today. So Bertrand Russell asks: if that statement is already true today, then how can it be that when we get to next year, a naval battle between Britain and France might not occur? After all, already today the statement has a truth value. I don’t know it. Doesn’t matter, but there is some truth value. So let’s say the truth value is that the statement is true. Fine. If the statement is already true today, then it cannot be that next year no naval battle will occur, because that statement is already true today. What difference does it make that I don’t know it? Do you remember the story about Osmo? I think I told it in the previous class, the story of Osmo, right? It’s from Richard, from a book by Richard Taylor. He says that Osmo the villager went into the library, took out a book, started reading. The book was called The Story of Osmo. He started reading and saw there the entire story of his life: exactly when he was born and where he was born and what his parents’ names were and which kindergarten he went to, school, what grades he got, university, got married, lived here, became a teacher. He read everything. Okay? And then at the end he crashed in some airplane. It says there that he crashed in some airplane; he tried to prevent it, and that’s what caused the crash. To those I told this to. Yes. So now what is Taylor really claiming there? Taylor claims: suppose he hadn’t read the book. He wouldn’t have entered the library and read the book. Assuming the facts in the book are true facts, it would happen, right? Meaning, the fact that the information exists today, assuming it exists today, means that tomorrow it’s already determined what will happen. Something else cannot happen, because that information already exists today. Now, the fact that Osmo entered the library and read the book only sharpens the mess for us. It creates all sorts of loops here for us, but that’s not essential to the issue. Meaning, if Osmo hadn’t gone in to read, then the facts would still exist there in the book, and the book would presumably know what will happen, and Osmo would crash in the airplane regardless. Meaning, what says that I don’t have free choice is not the fact that someone knows the information today, but that the information exists today. If the information exists today, then tomorrow something else cannot happen, regardless of whether someone knows the information that exists today or not. Right? Agreed? I’ll give you an example. The Or HaChaim writes in chapter 6 of Genesis. He tries to suggest a solution to the question of knowledge and choice: how does the Holy One know in advance and yet we have free choice? So he says: the Holy One prevents Himself from knowing. He closes His eyes, prevents Himself from knowing. Of course this doesn’t solve the problem, because if the information exists today, then we don’t have free choice what to do tomorrow, because already today it’s known what we’ll do. Now even if nobody knows that information, including the Holy One Himself—what difference does it make? If the information exists, then tomorrow we cannot do something else. This has nothing to do with whether someone knows it, right? The fact that the Holy One knows everything is because He knows all the information. If the information already exists today, then I don’t have free choice tomorrow. Even if nobody knows it, if the book is sitting in the library and nobody has read it. But if that information exists, then Osmo will crash in the airplane next year. Do you understand what I’m saying?

[Speaker M] Only on the assumption that the information exists.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, on the assumption that the information exists.

[Speaker M] And you can assume there is no such thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, you can assume anything, but if the information exists, then I don’t have free choice, even if nobody knows it, right? Now let’s go back to Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell is basically claiming that the sentence, “next year a naval battle will occur,” is already true today. The fact that I don’t know it, fine, but it’s already true today. But if it’s already true today, then how can Britain and France have free choice whether to decide to have a naval battle or not? After all, already today this sentence is a true sentence.

[Speaker F] So they don’t. So there is no choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s the proof of determinism. There’s a logical proof of determinism here. Because if the statement is true today, even if none of us knows it, that doesn’t contradict the fact that the statement is true today. Of course it’s true. So what if I don’t know it? If I wait until next week—next year—I will know. Fine, because I have limitations. But if the statement is true today, then that means that next year a naval battle must occur, regardless of whether I know that today or not. So if that’s the case, tomorrow a naval battle must happen. The world is deterministic. That’s basically the claim. Now he is essentially assuming that the truth value of a proposition is timeless. It isn’t connected to time. Meaning, a proposition that makes claims about the future—its truth value is already fixed today, right? And on this point I completely agree. Why? Because think about it: how do we check whether a certain proposition is true or not? How do we determine that? Simply by comparison, right? We compare what the proposition says to reality, to the state of affairs in the world that it describes. Okay, let’s compare. Let’s make the comparison. The proposition today says, “tomorrow there will be a naval battle.” Today I don’t know how to make the comparison, but we’ll do it tomorrow. Doesn’t matter. So I’ll wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I see that there was a naval battle. What does that mean? That the proposition made yesterday was true. Now I already know how to make

[Speaker B] the

[Speaker M] comparison, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yesterday I didn’t know how to make the comparison, but today I already know how to make the comparison. I make the comparison; the content of the proposition matches what happened, so the proposition was true. The fact that yesterday I didn’t know that doesn’t matter. The proposition was already true yesterday. Agreed? The truth value of a proposition doesn’t depend on who knows it and who doesn’t; it simply depends on the facts themselves. If it is true, then it is always true; if it is not true, then it is never true. It’s not that the proposition changes from true to false over time. The proposition is either true or false all the time. And this is one of the… I don’t remember whether I mentioned it—there is a famous letter Einstein sent to the family of a friend of his named Besso, who studied with him at the Polytechnic in Bern, I think, and when he died Einstein sent a condolence letter to his family. And he told them, “Look, we physicists know that the fact that Besso died, I don’t know, in 1950, was also true in the year 200 BCE—that Besso would die in 1950.” Only then they didn’t know it; today we know it, but nothing changed. Meaning, it was always true that he would die in 1950, and even now it’s true that he died in 1950. Only now we know it, that’s all. Meaning, in the world itself nothing new happened. All that changed was only our information about the world. So why should you be sad? Or alternatively, you should already have been sad in 200 BCE that Besso would die in 1950. It’s just that you didn’t know it, so you weren’t sad. But in principle, nothing happened in 1950 that should make you sad. What happened then was always true. This is basically the description of what I described here—that the truth value of a proposition is not a function of time. If the proposition is true, then it is always true and was always true; and if it is false, then it is always false and was always false. The truth value of a proposition doesn’t change. The proposition “Besso will die in 1950” did not become true in 1950. It was always true. Only in 1950 it became known to us that it was true. Until then we didn’t know. The Holy One, say, would have known it earlier too, because He knows how to obtain information about the future, okay? That’s a different discussion. So if that’s the case, says Bertrand Russell, then we have a proof that the world is deterministic, because the truth values of propositions have been fixed already since the six days of creation, from the very beginning, and consequently nothing has the freedom to happen otherwise. What was known in advance is what will necessarily unfold. There really is no possibility that something else will happen, and this is a proof of determinism. Where is his mistake? In my opinion, the same mistake as Steinitz’s.

[Speaker D] He

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] ignores the indifference of logic to the time axis. What do I mean? My claim is the following: next year a naval battle may occur and may fail to occur. If a naval battle occurs, then the proposition is always true and was always true. If a naval battle does not occur, then it was always false and will always be false. Okay? Now I’m claiming the following: the occurrence or non-occurrence of the battle retroactively determines the truth value of the proposition as true or false. Why is there no problem with this? Because when I say that the occurrence determines the truth value of a proposition, I haven’t said anything about causality. People think that if a naval battle occurs, that’s the cause of the truth value of the proposition, “tomorrow a naval battle will occur,” being true. That’s not correct. It isn’t the cause of that; it’s the condition for that. It cannot be the cause of that because it happens later. It’s the condition for it. Meaning, if a naval battle occurs, then the proposition “tomorrow a naval battle will occur” is already true today. But the “if-then” here describes a logical “if-then,” not a causal “if-then.” Okay? And therefore there is no problem saying that the truth value of the proposition is already correct today. But what is it? That depends on what will happen tomorrow. If tomorrow there is a naval battle, then the proposition is already true today. If tomorrow there is no naval battle, then the proposition is already false today. Wait, decide: is it true today or false today? I don’t know. According to what will happen tomorrow, that is what will determine whether the proposition today is true or false. How can the future determine the past? There is no problem.

[Speaker M] On the contrary, the Talmud—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Causality cannot happen backward in time. A cause cannot cause an effect that preceded it. But a condition is indifferent to time, like we had with rain and clouds. When I say that the occurrence of the naval battle is a condition for the sentence being true, I didn’t say that it’s the cause of the sentence being true. It’s the condition for the sentence being true. There’s no problem at all. The condition can go from future to past. I can say that if future A, then present B. There’s no problem with that. “If-then” is a logical relation, not a causal relation. And therefore this proof fails, this proof of determinism. And again, it’s the same point: logic is something indifferent to the time axis. There is no problem at all speaking of “if-then” where the “if” happens after the “then.” But when I say B happened because of A, that means A preceded B. Because “because” describes a relation of causes, including the physical component, and not only logical conditioning. Okay? Logical conditioning is indifferent to the time axis; it can work backward and it can work forward. Therefore there is no problem saying that a future event determines the present truth value of the sentence. Because determining a truth value is not a causal relation. Determining a truth value is logical conditioning. Or in other words, let’s formulate it this way: the logical value—let’s formulate it this way, look, and this is a more important point for our purposes. Let’s go back to Osmo’s book. If the information today about tomorrow’s naval battle already existed today, then clearly there is no freedom regarding the occurrence of the naval battle. Right: if the information existed today that tomorrow there will be a naval battle, then clearly tomorrow there will be a naval battle. Information really does determine the future, because it’s information. I have information that says what will happen in the future. But if I have no information in the present about what will happen in the future, and I only say that the sentence “tomorrow there will be a naval battle” is already true today or false, that its truth value is already fixed today—that is not information. Defining the truth value of a sentence is just a definition. I define a sentence as true in one way, or I define a sentence as false otherwise. That’s a definition. Definitions don’t determine anything; define however you want. Information can determine the future. If I have information today, then the future isn’t open. But the truth value of a proposition is not information. To say that the truth value of the proposition already exists today doesn’t mean that the information already exists today. The information will exist only tomorrow. But tomorrow’s information will determine the truth value of the proposition already from today. That’s all. Therefore, saying that the truth value of the proposition already exists today does not dictate what will happen tomorrow. But information that exists today does dictate what will happen tomorrow. This is a point that will be critical for things we’ll discuss later—bereirah and condition, as was mentioned here. That’s why it’s very important to me that we understand this point. Can you go over

[Speaker O] it again? One more time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s talk about Osmo’s story. Okay? Suppose there is a book in which everything that will happen is written. Nobody has seen the book, but it’s somewhere. If the book and its information are reliable—assuming the information is reliable, because otherwise you can write whatever you want. My assumption is that there is a book with reliable information. So wait. If the information is reliable, then that means what is written in the book is what will happen. Something else cannot happen, because it’s information about what will happen in reality. Okay? So if we could actually prove that today there is information about the future, that would be a proof of determinism. Fine? In a deterministic world, present information determines the future. If you know the present information, you know everything that will happen in the future. That’s if the information is in your hands. But if you assign a truth value to a proposition today, that doesn’t mean you have information, because after all you don’t know whether there will be a naval battle tomorrow or not. You only say that the truth value of the proposition, “tomorrow there will be a naval battle,” is already fixed today. According to what is it fixed? According to the event that will happen next year, which will cause the truth value now to be either true or false. Fine? But it isn’t that something is known today about what will happen in the future. A truth value of a proposition is just a definition. I define a proposition as true if it matches the state of affairs in the world. That’s how I define it.

[Speaker G] That’s a logical condition, no? Yes. It’s basically a logical condition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. It’s defined for me as a true proposition. That’s all. A logical stipulation if you like, or a definition, it doesn’t matter. A definition is a logical condition; it’s the same thing. Okay? A definition—it’s like the difference between a definition and a claim. When I define something, I don’t dictate anything. When I define, I can define whatever I want; a definition is arbitrary. A claim—I am claiming something about the world. If I claim something about the world, then it is supposed to occur; otherwise I am simply mistaken. With a definition there is no such thing as being mistaken; a definition is arbitrary. Define however you want. Same thing here. When I define the truth value of a proposition in this way, I have no problem at all defining the truth value of a proposition according to the future. What’s the problem with making definitions according to the future? I can make definitions according to the future. I define a table as only something that lasts at least two hours. Am I allowed to define it as a table? Now I say: this table, if it doesn’t last another two hours, then it isn’t a table. If it does last, then it is a table. Right now I don’t know in the meantime whether it is a table or not. But if it lasts, then already now it is a table, because it turns out that it lasted two hours, right? Does defining it as a table dictate anything? It dictates nothing. What happens in the future will determine whether this was a table or wasn’t a table. That’s all. It is determined retroactively whether this was a table or not—so what? There is no problem with that. I am allowed to determine things logically backward in time. That doesn’t dictate anything about what will happen. And again, that’s what I am saying. This is basically a condition…

[Speaker P] Huh? This is basically a condition in a gift, it’s a condition…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Earlier someone mentioned bereirah, now you’re mentioning condition—that’s our goal. That’s where I’m heading. In the end I’ll get to the topics of condition and bereirah. And in order to understand them properly, I’m giving this introduction. So this introduction basically says that there is no problem at all. Conditioning has no… it is indifferent to the time axis. Okay? I determine the truth value of the proposition on the basis of a future event. There’s no problem with that. I’m allowed. As long as this is only a definition and not a claim. Fine? Now I am basically going to distinguish between several levels of indeterminacy. Let’s perhaps formulate it before that. Remember the Or HaChaim? Suppose the Holy One knows in advance what will happen. Then the information already exists. If the information exists, then it also must happen, right?

[Speaker Q] Then there is no choice. Then there is no choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s Maimonides’ question about knowledge and choice. Why? Because there it’s based on information, not on the definition of the truth value of a proposition. Rather, there is certain information about what will happen tomorrow. So that really is a difficult question: how can we have free choice if the Holy One knows in advance what will happen? Therefore I really tend to think that the Holy One does not know what will happen. The Holy One does not know what will happen, and therefore we have free choice, because if He did know, we wouldn’t have free choice. But fine, that’s another discussion; I don’t want to get into it now. I will, however, bring you an example that also sharpens these points.

[Speaker R] It says in the portion of Shemot, “He who fashioned the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? He who made man’s mind, shall He not know?” Here we are basically on a completely different plane. You feel that here we really don’t understand the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that we don’t understand doesn’t change anything. If the information exists today, then we cannot do something else tomorrow.

[Speaker R] But the information doesn’t exist with us, the information exists with—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that it doesn’t depend on who knows it. As long as the information exists, the problem exists, even if nobody knows it. That’s what I brought earlier from the Or HaChaim—I don’t know if you were here—where I brought earlier that the Or HaChaim said that the Holy One hides the information from Himself. That doesn’t solve the problem. Because if the information exists, we have no degree of freedom to choose. It doesn’t matter whether nobody knows it. Okay. I want to give an example. Look, in the portion of Shemot it is described that Moses our teacher went out to walk in the land of Egypt and saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man. So, “He turned this way and that way and saw that there was no man, and he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” And Rashi there writes, “and he saw that there was no man”—meaning, no one would come out of him who would convert. Fine? Nobody would come out of him who would convert, and therefore he eliminated him. Good. There are many questions around this matter, but I want to focus on one point. Did Moses our teacher use his powers as a prophet in order to see what he saw there? Because he foresaw the future. He saw what was going to come out of this Egyptian. Ostensibly he was engaged in prophecy, right? Clearly that’s not true. Why? This prophecy, I also could have done. After all, in another moment he’s killing him—how will there come out of him someone who converts?

[Speaker C] Surely he saw that too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You brought about the future; you didn’t foresee the future. You yourself created that future, in which nobody would come out of him who converts. After all, you killed him—how will someone come out of him?

[Speaker G] But maybe there were children from before?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Earlier children are irrelevant. That doesn’t answer it.

[Speaker G] That’s not true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s irrelevant whether he had children. By the way, he did have children beforehand. How do I know that? That’s the blasphemer. The blasphemer was the son of that Egyptian and Shelomit bat Divri, right? That’s what the Sages say. So he had children. So how can it be that Moses our teacher saw that no one was destined to come out of him who would convert? The meaning is: he was not going to father anyone afterward. Not a child from before. So what? Isn’t it obvious that he’s not going to father anyone? You’re killing him—how will he father children? If you had left him alive, maybe someone would have come out. If I look at Moses’ prophecy as prophecy in the ordinary sense—the ordinary sense of prophecy means advance seeing of the future, yes? You roll back the events that will happen in the future and know them already now. Okay? That’s called a prophet. There it’s not a problem; I’ll tell you in advance the events that will happen. Once you kill him, nobody will come out of him. He won’t convert and he won’t fail to convert. No gentiles will come out of him either. Nothing will come out of him; he’s dead. You brought about the future; you didn’t foresee the future. So what did he do there? Clearly Moses our teacher looked at the present, not the future. He looked at the present and said: look, even if I leave him alive, still nobody will come out of him who will convert. Therefore I kill him. Meaning, he looked at a hypothetical future, not a concrete future. He looked at the future that in fact did not happen at all. Why? He looked at the future that would have happened if he had decided to leave him alive. If he had decided to leave him alive, let’s run a simulation—in my opinion nobody would come out of him who would convert. So if that’s the case, I kill him. Right? That’s what Moses our teacher did. He did not look at the concrete future that actually happened, because if that were the case it would be irrelevant. Obviously if you kill him, no one will come out of him who converts. He looked at the hypothetical future. What will happen if I leave him alive and don’t kill him? Then he will have children. What kind of children will they be? Will they be children who convert, children who have value? If not, then it isn’t worth leaving him alive, so I kill him. So notice: Moses our teacher did not look at the future at all. Because that future he saw did not happen. He looked at a hypothetical future—what would happen if I left him alive in the future. And none of that happened, because I killed him altogether. Or in other words, I want to claim that Moses our teacher looked at the present, not at the future. He said: who is the person standing before me? Someone like this—even if I leave him alive, nothing will come out of him. Therefore I kill him. So this is basically his view of the present, not of the future. He didn’t look at all with his power as a prophet; he didn’t use his power as a prophet. He used his power as a person who knows how to decipher who is standing before him in a deep way. A super-psychologist, let’s call it that.

[Speaker Q] That’s not a logical condition and it’s not a cause.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Simply—he understood what was happening in the present, and that’s all. There is no future here at all. I am not asking the question of what the relation is between what he said and what happened in the future. What he said did not happen in the future. So there is nothing to ask about the relation between them. Therefore it’s neither a sign nor a cause, neither logical nor causal. It isn’t relevant; there is no such future. That future didn’t happen. Fine? What Moses our teacher basically did was look deeply at this person in the present, as he is right now. He asked himself what would come out of him, but this is an analysis of the person as he is now; it is not advance seeing of the future, not a look at what will happen in the future. It is the best assessment, according to the data in the present, of what is expected to come from him later. Therefore it is not prophecy. But

[Speaker O] that means you have a deterministic approach, according to what you said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. But what does come out from here, and this is another problem, is that ostensibly one can already now know what will come out of that person in the future if I leave him alive. What do you mean? Maybe he will choose the good even though now he is a bad person? A person has choice. That’s the difficult question in this midrash. But that’s another discussion. I only wanted to bring from here an example of something that seems to us at first glance like prophecy, but it isn’t prophecy at all. It’s simply looking at the present. The question why Moses our teacher took his view of the present seriously, why he didn’t assume that maybe the person would repent, choose differently, and then what you see in the present would not necessarily materialize—who told you? That’s a deterministic assumption that needs to be discussed. I think that in fact Moses our teacher—after all, this is what they ask about Moses our teacher: how did he judge based on the future? Right? After all, regarding Ishmael it says that one must judge him “where he is,” right? The Sages say that the Holy One judges a person only according to what he is now, not according to what will come of him in the future. Right? So the difficulty everyone raises about Moses our teacher is that the midrash about Moses our teacher contradicts the midrash about Ishmael. Because Moses our teacher judged the Egyptian on the basis of what would come of him in the future. My answer is: no. He judged him according to his state in the present. It is entirely possible that if he had left him alive, the person would have repented, or his son would have repented and converted. It could be. But that is not relevant. Because a person is judged, a person is judged as he is there right now. He is in such a condition; his present condition is such that even if I leave him alive, nothing good will come out of him. Such a person is liable to death. But that means you have abolished choice. What? Abolished choice? Exactly the opposite. Precisely because I accept his choice. And if he could have chosen the good and a child would really have come from him who converted, then Moses our teacher would have seen the present incorrectly. But Moses our teacher says: what do I care what he will choose in the future? The question is what his condition is in the present; that is what is relevant to the judgment I am making on him now. And in the present there is no positive point in him; from his present state nothing good will come out. That was what mattered. For Moses our teacher, the future is nothing but an indication of the depth of the problem in his present state, because his present state determines how I judge him, not the future, because one judges a person as he is there. On the contrary, that’s exactly the point. All those who raise a contradiction between Moses our teacher and the midrash about Ishmael think that Moses our teacher judged according to the future, but it’s obvious in and of itself that that’s not correct. He didn’t judge the future, because that future won’t happen. He judged according to the present. When I say—look, when I look at a person, even I, say, without being some great prophet, I look at a person and say: look, from such a wicked evildoer nothing good will come, and therefore I won’t have mercy on him; I will fight him, I will try to destroy him, put him in prison for life, I don’t know exactly what—a legitimate claim, right? Does that mean I’m a determinist? Of course not. I’m not a determinist. The person can repent, or his son can repent, and something good can come from him. Right, but I don’t judge on the basis of the future. The judgment has to be on the basis of the present. It has to focus on, be based on, the facts of the present. How does this person look now? That is what determines the judgment he deserves. Right now he appears in such a way that nothing good can come out of him. The fact that later he may choose differently, or his son may choose differently, is not relevant to the judgment I make on him now. What I do to him now is only according to his state now. Therefore this statement, as though it was about what was destined to come out of him who would convert, is only an indication. It’s an indication of the problematic nature, the depth of the problematic nature, that Moses our teacher saw in him in the present. And that is what matters for his judgment, not what will happen in the future. Clearly this is not a deterministic conception. The person could have chosen the good and himself become a good Jew, or his son could have been a good Jew. Of course. But that isn’t relevant to the discussion of his present. A person murdered; he deserves the death penalty. But maybe from him will come a righteous man, the foundation of the world? Why not spare him? Who knows—maybe he has choice. Maybe he himself will become a righteous man, the foundation of the world. He repented. Why doesn’t repentance help exempt him from the punishment of the religious court? The religious court sentences you to death. Okay, now you inform the religious court: I repented. Do they forgive you? You yourself have become righteous—this is no longer even about your children—and they go and kill you, thereby also preventing you from having more children and from yourself becoming righteous; they cut off your whole branch to the end of days. How can they do such a thing? Because a person is judged according to what he is there, according to now. True, there is a price in the future. It may indeed be that we missed great things, but there is nothing to be done. Judgments are made according to the state in the present. Except that sometimes I phrase the present state through future indications. When I come to explain how deep the problem is in him, I say: look, in this state even in the future nothing good can come out of him. Unless, of course, he chooses differently and changes; then that’s something else. But that doesn’t matter. I am interested in his state in the present; that is what determines his judgment. Okay? Now I just want to summarize and distinguish between several situations, which is basically more or less the end of the introduction. When we talk about influence from the future backward in time, we can talk about it on several levels. Barak, this is the main problem in the topics of condition and of bereirah. How can a future event determine a present state? Right? If I betroth a woman on condition that tomorrow it won’t rain. A condition of “provided that.” Then if tomorrow it doesn’t rain, she is betrothed already from today. And if tomorrow it does rain, then already from today she isn’t betrothed. Meaning, the future event determines a present status. The question is how can such a thing be? Or bereirah. I write the bill of divorce for that woman who will leave first through the doorway tomorrow. Again, whoever leaves first through the doorway tomorrow—which is a future event—determines the present status. How can that be? That is what everyone struggles with, and around that revolve the topics of condition and bereirah and the differences between them, and about that we will speak more. But I want here to distinguish between several levels of backward influence in time. Sometimes there is a situation where the future is—perhaps one could think of a situation where the future is the cause of something happening in the present. That is very problematic. Because usually the cause is supposed to come before the effect. Okay? But sometimes there are situations where the future affects the present in some sense that doesn’t contradict the principle of causality. For example, let’s take a first example. I was abroad and a child was born to me in Israel. My wife gave birth to a child in Israel. And I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. Let’s say that nobody even knows if it’s a boy or a girl; for the time being nobody has seen it yet. Fine? Nobody knows if it’s a boy or a girl. Now I arrive in Israel after a week, I don’t know how long, and I discover that it’s a boy. Now clearly it was already a boy a week earlier too, right? I just didn’t know which it was. Meaning, the whole problem was only a lack of information on my part, right? But reality itself was fixed. The information already existed in the world, the fact was already true, right? Here nothing is happening backward in time. The fact doesn’t change backward in time, the legal status doesn’t change backward in time. And my knowledge doesn’t happen backward in time either; it happens in another week, and from then on I know that it’s a boy. He was also a boy a week earlier, but I didn’t know which it was. Nothing happened here backward in time, right? Information was simply revealed to me that had already been true earlier and that I didn’t know; it was revealed to me at a certain stage. Okay. Like some scientific law that was discovered. It was true earlier too; just until that time it wasn’t known. From the moment it is discovered, then people know it. Okay? There’s nothing problematic here at all; nothing is happening backward in time. Agreed? There is nothing problematic about this. There is information I didn’t know, and from here onward I do know it. The second context is a situation where I say, for example, that I make the woman’s divorce or betrothal conditional on rain tomorrow. Will it rain tomorrow? Now one thing is clear: today I don’t know if tomorrow it will rain or won’t rain, right? That is completely clear. The fact that I will know it tomorrow is not itself problematic either; from tomorrow onward I will know it. But here in Jewish law I want this to determine a present legal status. The rain tomorrow will determine whether the woman is already divorced today. Here something is already happening retroactively, right? But notice: since this is about rain and not about some act done by a person, it is basically a physical event, right? It’s a natural event. The laws of nature determine whether it will rain or won’t rain. So with our forecasting abilities, say, we can determine two, three, five days ahead whether it will rain or not. A week ahead is already too far for us. But the Holy One, who knows everything, or a super-forecaster who knows all meteorology, all the laws of meteorology, could also determine it a week in advance, right? There is no problem at all. In principle, the relevant physical information already exists now, right? The fact that nobody knows it because we are not good enough scientists—we don’t know—but the information already exists now. The processes that will ripen into rain in another week are already happening now. Therefore in such a case it may be that when I say, “this is your bill of divorce if it does not rain,” “provided that it does not rain,” here too nothing is happening backward in time. Because basically the fact that in a week it won’t rain or will rain is already true today. Not the truth value of the proposition—the fact. If we asked the Holy One, or if there were someone who was a super-forecaster, say, with technology from another two hundred years from now, where maybe they’ll already know how to forecast a month ahead, okay? Then he would already know today whether in another week it will rain. We don’t know it—so what? That’s just a technological problem or a scientific problem that we don’t know. But the information already exists today. So it may be that this is really just like that child who was born and I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. Only in the case of the rain, not only do I not know, but nobody knows. Doesn’t matter. But already today there are processes that will ripen into rain in another week. Therefore when I make the bill of divorce conditional on whether it will rain in another week, there shouldn’t be any problem with it taking effect already now. It depends on reality itself. True, in order to know the law in practice I will need to wait another week to see whether it rains, but on the principled level there is no principled problem with the law being determined already today. Why? Because in truth the information also exists today. In the natural world, physics really is deterministic. In physics, the relevant present information determines what will happen in the future. And whoever knew all the physics could already determine today whether in another week it will rain or not. So basically that fact is already fixed and known and the information exists; only we don’t know it. The Holy One knows it, or some excellent forecaster—I don’t know if in some other culture on some other planet, I don’t know what, a more advanced culture—then maybe he too could know whether it will rain tomorrow or in another week. Okay? Look, our forecasting today knows how to determine rain tomorrow, right? And a hundred years ago they didn’t know how to do that. So when someone made a condition a hundred years ago about tomorrow, does that change anything? What do I care that they didn’t know? The information—today I already know—the information exists. So I am really making the condition dependent on information that exists today. The fact that I don’t know it until tomorrow means I have to conduct myself under laws of doubt. So what? But there is no principled problem with the condition, agreed? I am making it conditional on information that already exists today, like the child who was born and I just don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl—so what happened? If I now say, “this is your bill of divorce if the child that was just born to me in the Land of Israel is a boy.” Fine? I’m taking a trip around the world with my second wife. My first wife in the meantime gives birth in the Land of Israel. I give a bill of divorce to my second wife and say, if my first wife gave birth to a son for me, I’m so happy with her that she’s enough for me, I don’t need you. She gave me a son, everything is wonderful. Okay? So “this is your bill of divorce provided that what was born was a boy.” Does it make any difference that today I don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl? What difference does it make? The fact that he is a boy is already true today. I’ll wait until I get to Israel and then the fact will become known to me, but that fact is already true today. This isn’t a problem of going back in time. It’s simply information that I lack and that will be brought to my knowledge in another week. That’s all, right? Let’s look at a third case. A third case is where I say: this is your bill of divorce provided that father agrees, that my father is appeased, or someone else, it doesn’t matter. Why do I call this a third case? Because here the future event is an event of choice. Not a physical event. It’s a decision of a person—either he will consent or he won’t consent, right? In a person’s decision, the information itself—if we are libertarians—the information itself doesn’t exist before the person decides. It’s not like rain, where the information exists and I just don’t know it; there it’s only a matter of calculation. Maybe the calculation is complicated so I don’t know, but basically it’s a matter of calculation. In the case of free choice, there is no way to calculate what the person will do. Because he can decide to do this or to do that. The present state doesn’t determine what he will do—that is the libertarian assumption. So if that’s the case, information about what he will do in the future does not exist at all. So when I now make this law, the divorce or the betrothal, conditional on a future event of human choice, that is much more problematic, because the information does not exist at all, and then it really means that the future creates something backward in time in relation to the present. That really creates a philosophical problem. And we will see—and we will see—that on this Nachmanides says, Nachmanides wants to claim that if I make a condition based on future events, then it is indeed different if the events are events of choice than if the events are natural events. A last example, a fourth example, and with this we’ll finish the general map, is when the future event does not—maybe before that—when I say, “this is your bill of divorce provided that so-and-so agrees.” Fine? Now whether so-and-so agrees or doesn’t agree is a question of choice. That person has to decide whether he chooses or doesn’t choose. So when I say “provided that so-and-so agrees,” just one second, when I say “provided that so-and-so agrees,” I am basically making it depend on a future event of choice. Right, I am making it depend on a future event of choice. But is the future event the cause of what happened here? Remember the concept of causality. Is the rain the cause of the woman’s being divorced? No.

[Speaker D] Nor is the father’s consent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The reason she is divorced is that she received a bill of divorce. It’s just that I make it dependent on a condition—that the father agrees, that it rains, something like that. So that’s a condition, but it’s not a cause. We already said that a condition belongs to the logical plane, right? It’s not a cause. But if I want—and this is the fourth case—if I want a future event to bring about the present state, not merely to serve as a condition for the present state but to serve as the cause of the present state, that’s problematic. For example, when I make a vow and I go to a sage to annul it, okay? To permit the vow, not to revoke it—revoking is with a wife—to annul the vow. Now if the sage annuls the vow, he uproots it retroactively. But notice: I didn’t make the vow conditional; I made the vow in the regular way. Now I go to a sage and he uproots the vow retroactively. But what is the cause of the fact that the vow is uprooted?

[Speaker N] Changing the past.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is the cause of that?

[Speaker N] The sage’s decision.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sage’s decision, right. Here the sage’s decision is not a condition for the vow to be uprooted; it is a cause. Now that’s already a truly absurd situation; that’s situation number four. When the future event brings about a present state, it doesn’t merely serve as a condition at all. In a bill of divorce on condition that the father agrees, or that the sage agrees tomorrow, the bill of divorce brings about the divorce; I’m just making it dependent on a future event. That’s still acceptable—that’s the third case, as we said. But here this is already the fourth case. The future event brings about the present state; it doesn’t merely serve as a condition. I didn’t give anything here that annulled the vow; I made the vow in the regular way, I didn’t make any condition or anything, then the sage comes and decides to uproot the vow—but to uproot it retroactively, so it was already uprooted from yesterday. So that means that here we already have causality going backward in time. That’s absurd. Causality means that the future event is the cause of the present event, and that’s absurd; it can’t be. Okay? That’s the fourth case, and we’ll have to deal with it too, this one as well. We’ll see that in Jewish law there are also situations like this. Okay? So next time I’ll start with a summary of these four situations. I recommend that you review the lesson a bit; if you didn’t take notes, there are recordings, you can listen to them, because I’m going to use this later on. These introductions are necessary introductions. Okay? Do you want to summarize?

[Speaker N] No,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I—there are recordings, so you’ll be able to listen to the recordings. Also on my website, but also on the course website. Okay? Good. Okay. All right, happy holiday.

[Speaker N] To you too,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Happy holiday, have a peaceful Sabbath.

Topics in Talmudic Logic, Lesson 19

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