Illusions of causality: how they bias our everyday thinking and how they could be reduced
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00888/full
Illusions of causality occur when people develop the belief that there is a causal connection between two events that are actually unrelated.
We cannot think of a better safeguard against the illusions of causality than scientific thinking, which involves skepticism, doubt, and rigorously applying scientific methods, particularly the experimental approach.
- How to Assess the Illusion
- The Probability of the Outcome
- The Probability of the Cause
- Cause-Outcome Coincidences
- Maximizing the Outcome vs. - Testing the Causal Relationship
- The Cost of Action—Secondary Effects
- Depression
- Personal Involvement
- When There are Several Potential Causes
- Aversive Conditions: Just the Other Way Around?
- Developing an Educational Strategy
How to decrease likelihood of experiencing illusions of correlation or causality:
- Knowing when and how to use skepticism and critical thinking skills.
- Relying on scientific methods that can assess causality.
- Learning how to think scientifically.
- Be vigilant and detect your own interpretations of causality.
- Understanding the importance of controlling for extraneous variables.
- Staying informed about potential alternative explanations for an event.
- Understanding that causality cannot be assessed by quick intuition.
- Actively or passively observing the effects of removing or reducing the perceived cause of an outcome.
- Attempt to complete information of instances when perceived causes and outcomes co-occur and do not co-occur.
- Running an experiment to test the effects of one variable on the outcomes of the other variable.
- Distancing ourselves from situations in which we are personally involved.
- Allow objective or neutral observers to help judge for causal relationships.
@ravenclaw No. I would say that's more in the realm of metaphysics as it's something we cannot prove or disprove.
@choutos thanks! I don't know if i'm going to be happy or sad with that answer. 
But cheers anyway! 
@ravenclaw I think it very much such an illusion. Not exactly, but related. You look at something and feel it's impossible for this to be random, something must have caused it, "aha I know! Zeus must have thrown that lighting bolt!". The same feeling makes you jump at correlations and interpret them as causality. It's a general desire to know everything, and be in control of everything.
You first must form a coherent, rigorous theory that is not open to interpretation. If someone says it is, you must fight them viciously (through elaborations) to make sure it isn't. This theory must also fully cover reasonable part of reality and not be too narrow, to be useful. This first step alone is quite difficult. Then you must make sure every prior even tangentially related experiment does not refute it. Then you must device various repeatable experiments that confirm it, in all of its aspects. If any aspect is not covered that aspect should be removed from the final/definitive version.
Not everything they tell you in school has gone through such a process, because schools are meant to familiarize yourself with society and culture and pique your interest, not tell you all the undeniable truths (and it's also terrible at what its doing). The pedantry usually starts at university level, but it is fundamental and necessary.
@ravenclaw not much to do other than being aware, I guess. Also from time to time "yelling" at people who try to assert their religion disguised as science.
@choutos
@ravenclaw preach :V
@choutos
@ravenclaw I say go forth and preach :V
young... father... pope?
@ravenclaw Why not? Religions proved to be a good business.
@choutos
once I read a book, and it’s emphasizing the importance to understand that ‘creative thinking’ or ‘imaginative thinking’ (which actually one as divergent way of think) will be turned off if the human start to evaluate seriously the thing he think (critical thinking).
Economically Speaking : to create something is beneficial for the economy and I don’t undercut the importance of the critical thinking to mitigate any damages if possible
And I probably differentiate between being wrong and being disillusioned. I mean people can be in a cult, but also can make several decisions that’s not injuring him economically in the process.
@blinkwarp I was talking specifically about “illusions of correlation or causality”.
Basically speaking, this is when we credit a result to the wrong originator. For example, thinking that homeopathy can cure a disease; or that wearing a “magic” bracelet can help you perform better in a given sport.
@choutos does me "believing in god" because i think "if universe is always expanding. It certainly real that all the thing in universe were most likely to be at singularity at some point in the past and then something just messed with the singularity which causing it to explode and keep expanding. Which means there's should be an entity that most likely to make, start or involved in that process."
Count as illusion as well ?