I am not convinced. If you take the action principle as a cause because it is a property of nature, then the effect is the path light travels, in one instance of the effects of the action principle. Sean Carroll in one chapter in his series the Biggest Ideas, says that at the microscopic level, causality can be replaced by patterns. For example, in the pattern of natural numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4,... one does not say that 3 causes 4, although 4 always comes after 3. But at the macroscopic level, when new systems and relationships emerge (Carroll believes in emergent theory) and the entities have volition like human motives, then cause-and-effect is legitimate science. Reciprocity, forgiveness, altruism, competition, are real phenomena in social science and can only be studied under a cause-and-effect lens.
If you're talking about natural numbers as a pattern, then yes 3 does not cause 4. But if we're just talking about patterns, then there's no particular reason to privilege the pattern 1,2,3,4... over any other arrangement of the numbers. To give the particular pattern 1,2,3,4... significance, then the pattern must be regarded as a _sequence_ defined by a rule. In this case the rule is that the next number in the sequence is the successor of the previous one. In other words, 3 does cause 4.
Causal model is almost surely a misleading of causality. I believe, in the era of Hume and Kant, if someone can’t figure this point out, he or she was far from to be considered as a philosopher. Fancy tech with shallow mind, so pitiful
These causation approaches do not work for human specific intelligence, especially when using complex languages and mathematics. The semantics of "causation", "laws", and many other important phrases varies from time to time, from some cases to other cases. People use intelligence to study intelligence, and use sciences to study sciences, which raise particular difficulties in higher-order logic. The dynamic semantics with higher-order logic could incur severe problems in logic and judgement, especially in the testing of artificial intelligence. Gödel indicated there are problems in axiomatic systems and logical positivism/empiricism. A better logic system is needed. There are more channels than synapses on neurons to be studied or even to be discovered. There are other types of signals in brains which you missed. Not to mention quantum entanglement, the assumptions of quanta emerging from nothing, and the world beyond Planck measurement, etc.
