Exercises in Causality

Exercises in Causality

Necessary v. sufficient causes: "The cat died last night"

 

How the Cat Died

A man lived with his old mother, whom he cared for. Having to go on a trip, he asked his absent-minded aunt to take care of the house, his pet cat, and his mother. During his trip, he called to see how things were going. His aunt replied, “Oh, things are fine.”

“Good!” said the man, relieved.

“Oh, but one thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“The cat died last night.”

Incredulous, he spurted, “What! The cat died? Why didn’t you tell me?”

The aunt replied, “Well, I was just too busy.”

“Well, how’d he die?”

“It was in the fire.”

“What fire?”

“The one your mother started.”

“My mother? A fire?!!! What fire?”

“The one that burned down the house.”

“Burned down the house? What???” Then, trying to calm himself, he said, “But what about mother?”

“Oh, she broke her leg.”

“Broke her leg? Mother broke her leg?”

“But she’s fine now. Well, at least until she can fix her heart problem.”

“Heart problem? What heart problem?”

“The one that made her fall.”

“She fell?”

“She fell when she had her heart attack.”

“Heart attack! Mother had a heart attack?” The man almost collapsed now, desperate.

“Yes. The cat gave it to her.”

Now, he was entirely desperate. “The cat? Heart attack? Fire? Please, please, please, tell me what happened?”

“Well, the power went out, so she lit a candle. But the cat scared her in the dark and she had a heart attack and fell down the stairs, breaking her leg. She dropped the candle on the floor, which set the carpet on fire. The cat died in the fire.”

The man fell over in shock.

Unexpected causal chains: the mouse and the mousetrap

The Mousetrap!

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain? the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house! The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I can't be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. "Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house ‑‑ like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.