assigning one.

[keannu]

High school first grade mock test : 2918-9-29

People are innately inclined to look for causes of events, to form explanations and stories.
That is one reason storytelling is such a persuasive medium. Stories resonate with our experiences and provide examples of new instances.
From our experiences and the stories of others we tend to form generalizations about the way people behave and things work.
We attribute causes to events, and as long as these cause* and* effect pairings make sense, we use them for understanding future events.
Yet these causal attributions are often mistaken. Sometimes they implicate the wrong causes, and for some things that happen, there is no single cause. Rather, there is a complex chain of events that all contribute to the result; if any one of the events would not have occurred, the result would be dissimilar. But even when there is no single causal act, that doesn’t stop people from assigning one.

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What does the underlined "assigning one" mean?

 

[GoesStation]

Deciding that one specific act caused something else to happen.

 

[keannu]

Deciding that one specific act caused something else to happen.

I'm sorry I still don't get it.

 

[Skrej]

Often the thing that happens was just the result of a unique combination of related events. Change any one of the events in the sequence, and the end result is different. However, people sometimes still inaccurately say that because one of those events happened, the end result would occur again every time that single event happens.

For example: If I light a match and hold it until it burns my finger, I feel pain. This would be true every time I light and hold a match until it reaches my finger. I can legitimately say a burning match will cause pain if held too long.

Now let's say I'm outside raking leaves. I take a break from raking to smoke a cigarette. I strike a match to light my cigarette. I hold the match too long, and it begins to burn my fingers. I throw the match away in pain. It lands in the pile of leaves. The leaves catch on fire. Because I didn't put the gasoline away after mowing my lawn, the burning leaves ignite the can of gasoline. The gas explodes, and catches my house on fire. My house burns down, and falls over on the neighbor's car.

If I hadn't left the gas out, or didn't stand close to the leaves while smoking, or didn't take a break from raking, my neighbor's car wouldn't be crushed, even if I did strike a match. If I can change any one variable and have a different end result, then I can't claim that any particular one of those will always result in my neighbor's car getting crushed.

Does lighting a match always crush my neighbor's car? No.
Does raking leaves always crush my neighbor's car? No.
Does mowing the lawn always crush my neighbor's car? No.
Does smoking always crush my neighbor's car? No.
Does buying gas always crush my neighbor's car? No.

So I can't say that smoking/raking leaves/mowing the lawn/striking a match crushes my neighbor's car, but somebody wanting to rationalize this unlikely series of events might say "You shouldn't smoke because it'll crush your neighbor's car.":lol: