I understand scientific causality in terms of causal process which is generally based on scientific notions of physical process and thus physical causality. It’s not particularly exceptionally stringent and most certainly it is scientific. Stanford for example has an accessible definition(s) of causal process for your edification.
This focus on physical causality also defines the general scope of the sciences, and in that sense scientific method is self-limiting. It is thus not controversial to point out that the limit of scientific enquiry is precisely its focus on physical phenomena. Some proponents of physicalism however, claim that everything in the universe must ultimately be explained in physical terms. This latter metaphysical belief is in my opinion a form of pseudo-religious faith, its proponents are also commonly believers in scientism which is the related and rather naive faith that science can answer all questions.
There are many philosophers of science as well as ‘everyday scientists’ who have a much more pragmatically mundane view of the sciences and scientific method.
This is also in my view where the scientific and phenomenal disciplines (such as anglo-american philosophy of mind, phenomenology and Buddhist insight understanding) part company. Science simply has no purview over the phenomenal world as such, as its focus is on explaining physical phenomena in physical terms. Historically, the phenomenal world has been relegated to ‘inner’ subjective experience, the mere appearances of which are somehow draped over the ‘external’ space-time of a physical world beyond our senses. Phenomena are ‘epiphenomenal’ in this view, in that our phenomenal experiences do nothing and the underlying physical reality remains the ultimate cause, whether that is thought in terms of reductive physicalism or as a supervenient hierarchy.
The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ is interesting for me as it problematizes this phenomenal-physical relationship at a fundamental level. And if you want to understand this problem it’s important to make that phenomenal-physical distinction as clear as possible, thus:
From a scientific perspective your question can be answered in two senses, one being physical (‘objective’) and the other being phenomenal (‘subjective’).
The phenomenal case: Do I doubt that when I open my eyes it is the the phenomenal experience of seeing the tree in the afternoon’s phenomenal light that is causally responsible for that conscious (phenomenal) experience?
Your question here makes no real phenomenal sense - “is the phenomenal experience of seeing a tree the cause for that phenomenal experience?” is a nonsense question. I would have to say that it is ‘my volition in opening my eyes to see’, that is the phenomenal cause for what is then seen. Volition sets the stage for the direction of my conscious attention towards perceiving the tree standing there in the afternoon light. Without the volition there is no directed attention (intentionality) and thus no perception.
The physical cases:
-
Do I doubt that when I open my eyes and look at a tree it is the electromagnetic radiation reflecting off the physical substance of the tree that then causes retinal stimulation in my eye with a subsequent propagation of electrochemical signals through to my brain? No, I have no doubt that is the case as that’s a fairly simple and rather well understood bio-physical causal chain.
-
Do I doubt that this physical process is associated with the phenomenal experience of actually seeing the tree? Of course not, for it is the phenomenal experience that first gives rise to the question of what’s going on physically between my body and physical things in the phenomenal world.
-
Do I however, also doubt that this physical process is then causally responsible for that non-physical phenomenal process and its conscious experience? Absolutely I have doubts, and so welcome to the ‘hard problem of consciousness’!
Scientists working in the brain sciences alongside philosophers of mind have absolutely no idea what phenomenal experience is composed of, how such a non-physical process might arise from physical processes, or even how to go about conceiving of the possible causal or emergent relations responsible for the self-evident correlation between the phenomenal and physical realms. At the moment all we have is correlation and a philosophical confusion about all the causal terms of reference.