Complexity Returns to the Mother Church (or v.v?).

[Nick Thompson]

A Homily from the Mother Church,

 

Dear Bretheren and Sisteren,

 

Was it because Robert Holmes returned to the fold, or was it just a coincidence that today we returned to discussions of such topics as emergence, determination, downward causality, and the possibility of explanatory reduction of all phenomena to particle physics.   Now, in the past, where this matter has always seemed to settle, is on the idea that while it is IN PRINCIPLE true that everything is determined and that, if we had but time, and computer enough, we could predict the effect of the butterfly’s flap on Hurricane Michael, in PRACTICE it’s a waste of time thinking about because we can’t, we won’t, and we never will.  This solution has the joint benefit of conceding that physics is the queen of sciences, yet allowing us to tell  physicists to go screw themselves because, for most of the things we think about, they are TOTALLY irrelevant.  

 

I have never been happy with this solution.  It’s just not Jesuitical for me.  As many of you know (because you have suffered through it) I have read a lot of C. S. Peirce since the last time we talked about these issues at FRIAM, so I was led to wonder Peirce has given me any purchase on these questions in the meantime.  So here is what I came away from our discussions with:

 

1.       Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.  Now, please, I would like to bracket for once that fact that what I just wrote is non-sense.  Probabilities are relative frequencies and inhere, therefore, to categories of events, not to individual events.  Unless we are careful, this will lead us to an uncomfortable discussion of how we will ever know if event A1 and A2 belong to the same category and, I think, will soon discover that we are in a vicious circle.  So PLEASE, let’s not go there.  Allow me: “Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.  ”

2.       Every event is accompanied by an infinity of other events which have nothing to do with it.  I type the words, “Vladimir, Go Brush Your Teeth” and, mirabile dictu, Putin is brushing his teach.  Yet there is no connection between those events.  Most pairs of events are like that.  Or, as Peirce puts it, the world is just about as random as it could be.  

3.       If there is ANY order in the world – and Peirce thinks there is – organisms that smoked that order out would be much better off than organisms that ignored it.  Groups of organisms that learned from one another such contingencies would be better off than groups that didn’t , etc.  Indeed, physical structures that were in accord with such lawful relations (think orbits) would be more enduring than others.  Thus, that the world around us is mostly orderly is because we have adapted to,  sought out and thrived in to that small part of it where order prevails.

4.       Not all determination is simple.  Some events are themselves complex events.  So event X can consist of the concatenation of events A, B, and C, and event Y can be determined by such a concatenation.  Any event that is determined by the organization of its component events is said to be an emergent.  That a triangular structure holds weight is an emergent of the placement and attachment of its three legs. 

5.       Upward causation is partial.  Levels of organization supervene upon the properties of the events of which they are composed.  From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.

6.       Some structures are capable of generating their parts.  A supercell thunderstorm can arrange the atmosphere around it in a manner that will generate more thunderstorms.  A protein can arrange amino acids to make a protein.  In such systems, at least, there is downward causality. 

7.       So, is everything reducible to particle physics?  No.  Not unless you believe that two by four’s are particles. I would submit, therefore, that every physicist, no matter how wise, no matter how big his computer might be, will require engineers to construct his particle accelerator.   

So there!

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Frank Wimberly-2]

Search for "Glymour publications CMU waste mind" to read a paper on related topics by my erstwhile boss, who is a well-known philosopher of science.  Don't worry, he has a very good sense of humor.

Frank

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 4:46 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

A Homily from the Mother Church,

 

Dear Bretheren and Sisteren,

 

Was it because Robert Holmes returned to the fold, or was it just a coincidence that today we returned to discussions of such topics as emergence, determination, downward causality, and the possibility of explanatory reduction of all phenomena to particle physics.   Now, in the past, where this matter has always seemed to settle, is on the idea that while it is IN PRINCIPLE true that everything is determined and that, if we had but time, and computer enough, we could predict the effect of the butterfly’s flap on Hurricane Michael, in PRACTICE it’s a waste of time thinking about because we can’t, we won’t, and we never will.  This solution has the joint benefit of conceding that physics is the queen of sciences, yet allowing us to tell  physicists to go screw themselves because, for most of the things we think about, they are TOTALLY irrelevant.  

 

I have never been happy with this solution.  It’s just not Jesuitical for me.  As many of you know (because you have suffered through it) I have read a lot of C. S. Peirce since the last time we talked about these issues at FRIAM, so I was led to wonder Peirce has given me any purchase on these questions in the meantime.  So here is what I came away from our discussions with:

 

1.       Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.  Now, please, I would like to bracket for once that fact that what I just wrote is non-sense.  Probabilities are relative frequencies and inhere, therefore, to categories of events, not to individual events.  Unless we are careful, this will lead us to an uncomfortable discussion of how we will ever know if event A1 and A2 belong to the same category and, I think, will soon discover that we are in a vicious circle.  So PLEASE, let’s not go there.  Allow me: “Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.  ”

2.       Every event is accompanied by an infinity of other events which have nothing to do with it.  I type the words, “Vladimir, Go Brush Your Teeth” and, mirabile dictu, Putin is brushing his teach.  Yet there is no connection between those events.  Most pairs of events are like that.  Or, as Peirce puts it, the world is just about as random as it could be.  

3.       If there is ANY order in the world – and Peirce thinks there is – organisms that smoked that order out would be much better off than organisms that ignored it.  Groups of organisms that learned from one another such contingencies would be better off than groups that didn’t , etc.  Indeed, physical structures that were in accord with such lawful relations (think orbits) would be more enduring than others.  Thus, that the world around us is mostly orderly is because we have adapted to,  sought out and thrived in to that small part of it where order prevails.

4.       Not all determination is simple.  Some events are themselves complex events.  So event X can consist of the concatenation of events A, B, and C, and event Y can be determined by such a concatenation.  Any event that is determined by the organization of its component events is said to be an emergent.  That a triangular structure holds weight is an emergent of the placement and attachment of its three legs. 

5.       Upward causation is partial.  Levels of organization supervene upon the properties of the events of which they are composed.  From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.

6.       Some structures are capable of generating their parts.  A supercell thunderstorm can arrange the atmosphere around it in a manner that will generate more thunderstorms.  A protein can arrange amino acids to make a protein.  In such systems, at least, there is downward causality. 

7.       So, is everything reducible to particle physics?  No.  Not unless you believe that two by four’s are particles. I would submit, therefore, that every physicist, no matter how wise, no matter how big his computer might be, will require engineers to construct his particle accelerator.   

So there!

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[gepr]

On 10/12/18 3:46 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> 5. ... From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.

UNLESS! The information about how such parts *can* be arranged is deducible from the parts, themselves.  E.g. regular vs. irregular tilings.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Robert Holmes-3]

Randall Munroe says this better than I ever could

PHYSICISTS

By the way Nick, you mentioned a physicist who set ethology back 50 years. Who was it?

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 5:10 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 10/12/18 3:46 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> 5. ... From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.

UNLESS! The information about how such parts *can* be arranged is deducible from the parts, themselves.  E.g. regular vs. irregular tilings.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Nick Thompson]

Geez, Robert.  You aren’t going to actually REMEMBER anything I said at FRIAM.  I count on the Geriatric Curtain of Forgetfullness.

 

His name was Donald Griffin.  Many people will say that he ADVANCED ethology 50 years.  The bat work was good.  But he started showing up at ethology meetings telling us how to think about  animal consciousness, and that, on my account, as a behaviorist, was a VERY BAD THING. 

 

It was great to see you again.  Mostly because you are you, but partly, I suppose, because of your British education, you have the capacity to hold ideas lightly and rotate them in our view, and that is a great talent to have at the table at FRIAM.

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert Holmes
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2018 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Complexity Returns to the Mother Church (or v.v?).

 

Randall Munroe says this better than I ever could

 

PHYSICISTS

 

By the way Nick, you mentioned a physicist who set ethology back 50 years. Who was it?

 

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 5:10 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 10/12/18 3:46 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> 5. ... From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.

UNLESS! The information about how such parts *can* be arranged is deducible from the parts, themselves.  E.g. regular vs. irregular tilings.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove