Ever notice that even in pretty large groups a sudden hush can fall as everyone stops talking at the same time? I’ve noticed this in large classrooms filled with boisterous kids to formal dinners with great conversationalists.
When it does occur, the group usually just looks around, smiles, and moves on. The din of chatter fills the air again. The members of the group would find it impossible to find a specific cause for the sudden silence. In fact, every individual in the group who is a part of this process knows that there is no specific cause - they don’t even think about looking for one.
Now consider a blind man at the same table. He can only observe the sounds and the atmosphere but cannot see. He is in no position to rule out a large number of possible causes. While the rest of the non-blind people can see and confirm that nothing extraordinary occurred to cause the sudden silence, he cannot do this and so his mind will race to figure out what the cause was.
He will consider many hypothesis: maybe somebody spilt a drink, maybe somebody did something inappropriate, maybe a large group of waiters showed up to serve them, maybe the lights went out for a fraction of a second and came back on …
He will not consider that there is no cause. He will not consider that the question “Why?” is simply unanswerable.
In the case above, us humans are participants in the process so we have some insight into the lack of causality. In many other endeavors we are simply external observers or lack the self-awareness to consider the lack of causality. Socio-economic processes are highly complex and distributed. It is very possible that these are environments where “Why?” is unanswerable. But we may be like blind men looking for causes where none exist.
In any situation where a large investment is being made based on an answer to the question “Why?,” it may be prudent to ask if that question is answerable to begin with. Historians, economists and scientists who study history looking for non-proximate causes may be looking for an answer that does not exist (or is unknowable, they are epistemologically equivalent).
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