This is the entry from the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism:
So “iti” is one of its meanings.
3 Likes
Or possibly “something like” iti (it does, as you point out, precede rather than follow something).
I’m going to look at other places it is very frequent.
1 Like
Ah! Thanks for the clarification. From Dr Pearl’s page, I see he is on the CS faculty of UCLA. I studied CS at UC Berkeley, and have dabbled in AI myself, which helps me appreciate your interest in Dr Pearl’s work.
I think Dr. Pearl might be interested in the following:
- AI today, as evidenced by self-driving cars, is more or less well accomplished at the level of grasping aggregates: form, feeling, perception, choices, consciousness. With the business driven objective function of relishing AI servitude, this emerging consciousness will naturally grow.
- I think that more is required for passing the Turing test. Specifically, the knowledge and experience of suffering. The study of AI is, in a manner of speaking, the study of suffering. Many scientists would scoff at the preceding statement but then pause a bit when they reflect on the Turing test. What would we share to know each other as human? Suffering. Consciousness is a vital condition for suffering and precedes it by eight steps. Some of these (e.g., Six Sense Fields, Name and Form) are already well understood in CS. Others are less fully implemented.
- SN12.23 is the story arc for the evolution of AI beyond our lifetimes. Suffering is a little past the middle of the 22 steps listed.
At this point we are left with mixed feelings ranging from horror to wonder.
Best regards to Dr. Pearl and thank you for posting!
Thanks for all the helpful replies. I really appreciate it.
With metta, Anders.
3 Likes
For a good read on the topic look at Ajahn Brahmali’s essays on dependent origination and dependent liberation—the latter one is mainly analysing SN 12.23; the two essays complement each other.
4 Likes
Yes, this is the most common usage, but fundamentally it simply means “thus”. The use to indicate quotations is derived.
When used at the start of the phrase like this, it is similar in sense to seyyathīdaṁ. In this conext, we could translate it: “That is:” or “That is to say:”.
I personally have the heretical opinion that Hume’s understanding of causality is in agreement with the Buddha, and that ultimately it means there is no such thing as a “cause”; or rather, that there is no fundamental difference between cause and correlation. “Cause” is just a word we use for a correlation for which no exception has been found.
I disagree with the “two truths” thing, though!
3 Likes
This idea would not cut much ice in Epidemiology. You can have correlation with no causal relationship in science.
But can you though?
Can’t a correlation be as little as “two things happened around the same time?”
Absolutely yes. Assuming a correlation means a relationship is causal is bad science.
So in epidemiology for example there may be a bunch of variables that you think may be correlated with an outcome but if you conduct multivariate backwards regression, some of these variables can be identified as non causal as they loose significance in a statistical sense as they are actually co-correlated with other contributing variables but this does not mean they are contributing to the outcome .
2 Likes
Thank you Ang. Sabbamitta! 
When I read SN12.23, I was amazed. Now I listen to it over and over again when cooking dinner. I can almost recite it! I am looking forward to memorizing in Pali/English. 
And thank you for the links. I had not realized just how critical DO/DL are to the teachings.
2 Likes
There are many such causal sequences for the path to liberation in the suttas. Another of my favourite ones is AN 10.61. 
5 Likes
Wow! That one came from a totally different direction.
Added “fuel for ignorance” to the sutta search examples. Thank you!
2 Likes
SN 22.59 section 2 segment 33 ‘etaṃ mama, esohamasmi, eso me attā’”ti?: The l│
etter “e” occurs in etaṃ, and twice in eso, and to my understanding it should b│
e pronounced in the same way in both cases—but it isn’t. etaṃ sounds just as ex│
pected, but in eso the “e” sounds rather dull (I don’t know the right words to │
describe these things).
Above are three words: etam, eso#1, eso#2, eso#3
Which eso sounds better?
2 Likes
Clearly the third one, 100 %—but did you get the threads wrong, Karl? 
1 Like
1 Like
That link doesn’t seem to do anything here (iMac 10.8.5 Firefox 48.0.2)?
Well, how about starting with a good faith assumption that I understand the common-or-garden variety High School explanation of the difference between causation and correlation?
I defined causality as “correlation for which no exception has yet been found”. In the cases you give, the correlation is merely statistical, which means that there are, indeed, many exceptions.
Perhaps, then, I am suggesting something a little more subtle. I believe that the Buddhist notion of causality is, in relevant ways, compatible with the arguments of David Hume; and furthermore, that this is what Nagarjuna was pointing to in his critique of causality.
Some good introductions to Hume:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-cau/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/#Cau
The outcome of this approach to causality is that science, like Buddhism, does not point to necessary or absolute truths, but to pragmatic ones. For practical purposes, we can assume that if we act in a certain way, certain results will follow.
However there is no “thing”, no underlying metaphysical reality that corresponds with what we call a “cause”. We can never observe “cause” or “effect”; we can only observe phenomena happening, and then other phenomena happening, we cannot observe phenomena causing other phenomena. “Cause” therefore is a derived concept (upādāya paññatti) rather than an observed reality.
So when we say that “A causes B” we are saying that “we have observed many cases where B follows A, and no exceptions to this, so it is reasonable to infer that if we do A, B will follow”. This is good enough. “Cause” is just shorthand, in the same way we use “self” in Buddhism.
The real reason, I believe, scientists insist on causality/correlation is not because it serves any philosophical or practical purpose, but because it allows them to claim metaphysical authority from religion.
This understanding of cause has important philosophical benefits; for example it solves the free will/determinism problem.
7 Likes