Cause or effect?

Two simple ideas came to me from friends and family:

1) When a woman is divorced she becomes unhappy. 

2) When a country is mostly muslim, the nation becomes poor and fails. 

There is a significant degree of sexism and culturalism in both ideas. But, let us not be distracted by ubiquitous  discriminations. We shall yet overcome it, too, but let's not hold our breath. 

We will take the first one first. My friend lives in a conservative city in Turkey. In fact, the city was one of the original conservative regions in the world. About two millennia ago, offended by the new age ideas he pronounced, they swiftly kicked out Saul of Tarsus threatening him with execution if he wouldn't cut his stopover short and continue to Ephesus in the west. The city is where I grew up and lived the first 15 years of my life. Its biblical name Iconium is rather close to that of the recently re-modernized city of Rumi: of Konya where I am writing this page in.

Apologies for the detour. My friend mentioned to me that he met many divorced women in Konya and they were without much of an exception unhappy. He concluded: divorce is bad for women. It causes them to be unhappy. He also met some divorced men, I presume. But, he didn't observe them to be too unhappy. Let me let you ponder that a bit. I shall first mention the second idea briefly, too.

My father just read the news that out of 50 poorest nations on Earth, 30 (or maybe more, I think he said 32) were mostly muslim. He observed that those countries had either rich kings or dictators, or a small minority of super rich that lead the masses. Those leaders are apparently so rich as to get into the list of top 500 richest people in the whole world. He concluded rather promptly: islam is backward. When adopted, it makes people poor.

Do you agree with my friends and family? I hope you question some of the unspoken and maybe even unconscious presuppositions behind these familiar ideas. What is a presupposition? It is a hidden assumption. Let me offer you a simple trick to inquire into such strong and obsessive ideas (also known as beliefs). Ask yourself: what is the cause and what is the effect? 

At first glance, it might seem obvious that divorce makes unhappy, islam makes poor. You might agree or disagree. But, here is the simple trick any child can understand and employ: switch the cause and the effect and see if it makes some sense. Interestingly, many adults seem to have forgotten this trick. Let us see and remember how this works: 

1) Unhappiness causes divorce: When women are unhappy, the marriage suffers and ends up in divorce. Of course, it is now easier to generalize, when one of the partners is unhappy, the relationship is in trouble. 

2) Poverty and inequality causes folks to adopt Islam: The teaching of Muhammad of Mecca is famously egalitarian: take care of the orphans. Don't value material possessions and power over your neighbors, let alone your family and friends. That's one reason why it spread into India, the land of casts and material inequality, like a grass fire.

These are only two of the complex psychological and social questions we are troubled with in our times. We won't settle them here. But, just remember this: what is the cause and what is the effect? It might seem obvious that A causes B. Maybe you've never even questioned it. You just believed it. But, try the turnaround: Could it be the case that B causes A? Or, could there be yet another root cause, say C that causes both A and B? If you are interested, google: correlation is not causation and confounding.

These are immortal questions. Ask any good scientist or a philosopher or a mathematician and you'll see how much care they would give to such a question. One prime example of a good thinker: see the short YouTube video of famous physicist Richard Feynman on why magnets attract, or why ice is slippery. There are in most cases no easy answers.

One final and simple example in this seemingly modern day of high technology seemingly indistinguishable from magic when some believe firmly that the earth is flat (I wonder, did they simply mean that it is flat enough? That would be rather accurate): Imagine the primitive man and woman who were curious enough to observe and make a case: both the sun and the moon go around us. One is big, hot and fast, and the other is smaller, cool and slow. 

Can you imagine all the false conclusions he or she could draw from these simple observations? The moon and the sun go around the earth. True and false! Now we know. Did anybody ask a flat-earther: how is that possible that not only the sun and the moon, but the stars and the planets all go around the earth? How did Magellan get to east by keeping going west? And, didn't stop until he came back to Spain where he got started? Actually, if I remember correctly, he died on the way, halfway around the world, away from home. But, some of the crew survived the trip and got home, all by only going west.

Most importantly, let me conclude, these simple questions of cause or effect can keep you blissfully busy eternally. So, please don't be overwhelmed. Take them one at a time. Just as Wittgenstein advised. Not necessarily his favorites. But, your own.