There is the theory of general causality developed by Judea Pearl, which as far as I&#x27;ve understood implies that you need to be able to purposefully affect the world you&#x27;re observing in some way to do experiments before you are able to infer causal relationships even in theory. See eg. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.michaelnielsen.org&#x2F;ddi&#x2F;if-correlation-doesnt-imply-causation-then-what-does&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.michaelnielsen.org&#x2F;ddi&#x2F;if-correlation-doesnt-impl...</a>