How does cause & effect relations work in our lives? All of us have some beliefs about cause and effect.
- Someone says or does something to us and we are happy. We claim those words or actions made us happy. i.e., our happiness was caused by their words or action.
- Someone says or does something to us and we are upset. We claim those words or actions got us upset. i.e., our anger was caused by their words or action.
- We do something with planning and determination and we get a certain result. We claim that our actions got us our result, i.e., our result was caused by our action.
What about the flip side of the same cause & effect relation?
- Have there been times you encountered that someone who was upset with you and you had absolutely no understanding why that happened? Surely you had nothing to do with it.
- Have there been times you encountered someone who remains dejected, de-motivated or otherwise disinterested in what you have to say or do? Surely there is nothing you can do about it.
- Have there been times that you planned meticulously and took action with determination and you did NOT get the result you had planned for? What happened? Why did you not get the result? You did everything very well, didn’t you?
This strange weirdness in cause & effects exists in everyone's knowledge & lives. And yet, it remains unexplained.
Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first.
Most of us tend to observe an event occurring immediately before or after or together with another event. And the more occurrences we observe, the more we tend to believe that one of the events is caused by another. Aren't all the above examples representative of this type of logical reasoning?
- Always when someone says or does something, you get happy or angry. So then it must necessarily mean that your happiness or anger is caused by that persons words/actions. Isn't it?
- Always when you do something and you get a result, then it must necessarily mean that the result is caused by your action. Isn't it?
- Always night follows the day and day follows the night. So it must necessarily mean that each is causing and also being caused by the other. Isn't it?
Think about it!