Causation in the metaphysical sense—a primitive relation of necessitation between events—does notexist. What we call “causation” conflates three distinct phenomena. Constraint satisfaction is astructural relation, real and mind-independent, derivable as a theorem. A cognitive label is an attributiongenerated by prediction error minimization when the brain encounters highly predictable regularities.Retrospective narrative is the causal story imposed after convergence from phase transitions whosemicro-level dynamics do not compress into sequential causal accounts. The first is not causation—it ismathematics. Metaphysical causation reduces to the latter two—neural projection and narrativeconstruction—neither of which has a mind-independent referent. The Stuart-Landau equation, whosemathematical structure recurs across physically distinct domains without causal mechanism, providesthe central evidence. The Order Emergence Structure (OES) formalizes the constraint morphismsconnecting these domains, grounded in the analyticity of physical dynamics (Sophia, 2026), and servesas an axiomatic foundation from which “causal” claims are derivable as theorems. This frameworkdissolves the apparent tension between Humean skepticism and Kantian realism about causation: Humeand Norton are correct that the primitive relation has no referent; Kant is correct that structural relationsare real—but wrong to call them causation. For systems exhibiting order through attractive interactions,“why” questions terminate not in deeper causes but in axiomatic derivation.
Philos Sophia Franny (2026) studied this question.