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Emergence and Downward Causation

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Emergence and Downward Causation

thompnickson2

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 




On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

> --

> 

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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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> 

> 

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> 

 

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Jochen Fromm-5
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

Jochen Fromm-5
My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

-J. 


-------- Original message --------
Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 




On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

> --

> 

> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe

> 

> 

> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam

> 

 

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Eric Charles-2
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

Eric Charles-2
In reply to this post by thompnickson2
Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.


On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

-J. 


-------- Original message --------
Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 




On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

> --

> 

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Jochen Fromm-5
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

Jochen Fromm-5
It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to learn.

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind works. 

-J.


-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.


On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

-J. 


-------- Original message --------
Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 




On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

> --

> 

> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe

> 

> 

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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam

> 

 

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Eric Charles-2
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

Eric Charles-2
In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just normal causation. 

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechanisms... we are some brand of behaviorist/materialist who understands intentions to be higher-order patterns of behavior in circumstances. 

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something are recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at that point, we either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some weird argument over words, not ideas. 


On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to learn.

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind works. 

-J.


-------- Original message --------
From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.


On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

-J. 


-------- Original message --------
Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 




On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

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thompnickson2
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

thompnickson2

Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope he right, but I am not so sure. 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just normal causation. 

 

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechanisms... we are some brand of behaviorist/materialist who understands intentions to be higher-order patterns of behavior in circumstances. 

 

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something are recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at that point, we either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some weird argument over words, not ideas. 

 

 

 

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

 

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.

 

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

 

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to learn.

 

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

 

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind works. 

 

-J.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

 

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

 

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.

 


 

 

 

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

 

-J. 

 

 

-------- Original message --------

Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 

 

On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

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> 

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Eric Charles-2
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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

Eric Charles-2
I mean... that Aristotle's 4 "causes" are all counted as "causes" is clearly arbitrary right?!? (At this point in the conversation.) The insight Aristotle is bringing to the table is that when someone points at something and asks "Why?", we can answer that in multiple sensible ways. That English uses the same word for what are (at least) 4 conceptually distinct things, is a different issue altogether. If we agree there are 4 distinguishable concepts there, we can call them "Cause1", "Cause2" or "Material Cause", "Efficient Cause", etc., or we could call them by much more distinct names if we wanted to.

Translating into other languages creates huge headaches in exactly these situations. How would you talk about the "4 causes" if you have a language in which there are four distinct words, each of which is clearly referring to a different kind of thing, and there was no omnibus term that lumped them together? Or what if there was a language that an omnibus word, but it was even wider, and included 6 distinct concepts? 

Even in English, because the language is so bloody flexible, it would be relatively trivial to remove the word "cause" entirely and just ask things like:
  • "What is it made of?" (requesting a "material cause" answer) 
  • "What will it be when it is done?" (requesting a "formal cause" answer)  
  • "What process made it that way?" (requesting an "efficient cause" answer)
  • "Why was it done?" (requesting a "final cause" answer)
And, of course, we could use Tinbergen's 4 "whys" as easily as Aristotles, or anyone else's suggested categories. 

Whenever we say more simply "What caused X?" we open ourselves up to being given an answer in any of those terms. The issue of whether constituent parts "cause" the whole is just such a confusion. The issue of whether some "higher" level of organization can "cause" things at a lower level is also such a confusion. That the U.S. was at war with Vietnam in 1974 was surely a cause of many things that happened in Vietnam during that year, by some reasonable meaning of the word cause. Once that's out of the way, the only question is whether that's the meaning of the word "cause" that we were interested in, and whether that meaning works for some specific happening of interest. 

Similarly: Do you remember at some point learning that "There are 8 types of love, affectionate love, romantic love, playful love, etc."?  What we probably should have been taught was something like "The ancient Greeks had distinct concepts, marked by unrelated words, for 8 things that we awkwardly try to lump under one word. Using just one word for all those things creates a lot of really awful confusions for English speakers. English is dumb, and we should create words to stop those confusions." Instead the messaging was more like "Oh, isn't it interesting that there are so many different kinds of love!" as if the basic category was somehow unchallengeable.

(I fully recognize that those who know Greek, or more intimately know Aristotle may find fault in my summary above, but I'm pretty confident the thrust of the overall argument stands)



On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 5:51 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope he right, but I am not so sure. 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just normal causation. 

 

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechanisms... we are some brand of behaviorist/materialist who understands intentions to be higher-order patterns of behavior in circumstances. 

 

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something are recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at that point, we either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some weird argument over words, not ideas. 

 

 

 

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

 

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.

 

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

 

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to learn.

 

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

 

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind works. 

 

-J.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

 

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

 

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.

 


 

 

 

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

 

-J. 

 

 

-------- Original message --------

Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 

 

On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 



On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

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Re: Emergence and Downward Causation

thompnickson2

Eric –

 

Sorry. good discussion. But I’m too busy being hysterical about the election right now.  Please rekindle discussion when Penny has scraped me down off the walls.

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 11:57 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

I mean... that Aristotle's 4 "causes" are all counted as "causes" is clearly arbitrary right?!? (At this point in the conversation.) The insight Aristotle is bringing to the table is that when someone points at something and asks "Why?", we can answer that in multiple sensible ways. That English uses the same word for what are (at least) 4 conceptually distinct things, is a different issue altogether. If we agree there are 4 distinguishable concepts there, we can call them "Cause1", "Cause2" or "Material Cause", "Efficient Cause", etc., or we could call them by much more distinct names if we wanted to.

 

Translating into other languages creates huge headaches in exactly these situations. How would you talk about the "4 causes" if you have a language in which there are four distinct words, each of which is clearly referring to a different kind of thing, and there was no omnibus term that lumped them together? Or what if there was a language that an omnibus word, but it was even wider, and included 6 distinct concepts? 

 

Even in English, because the language is so bloody flexible, it would be relatively trivial to remove the word "cause" entirely and just ask things like:

  • "What is it made of?" (requesting a "material cause" answer) 
  • "What will it be when it is done?" (requesting a "formal cause" answer)  
  • "What process made it that way?" (requesting an "efficient cause" answer)
  • "Why was it done?" (requesting a "final cause" answer)

And, of course, we could use Tinbergen's 4 "whys" as easily as Aristotles, or anyone else's suggested categories. 

 

Whenever we say more simply "What caused X?" we open ourselves up to being given an answer in any of those terms. The issue of whether constituent parts "cause" the whole is just such a confusion. The issue of whether some "higher" level of organization can "cause" things at a lower level is also such a confusion. That the U.S. was at war with Vietnam in 1974 was surely a cause of many things that happened in Vietnam during that year, by some reasonable meaning of the word cause. Once that's out of the way, the only question is whether that's the meaning of the word "cause" that we were interested in, and whether that meaning works for some specific happening of interest. 

 

Similarly: Do you remember at some point learning that "There are 8 types of love, affectionate love, romantic love, playful love, etc."?  What we probably should have been taught was something like "The ancient Greeks had distinct concepts, marked by unrelated words, for 8 things that we awkwardly try to lump under one word. Using just one word for all those things creates a lot of really awful confusions for English speakers. English is dumb, and we should create words to stop those confusions." Instead the messaging was more like "Oh, isn't it interesting that there are so many different kinds of love!" as if the basic category was somehow unchallengeable.

 

(I fully recognize that those who know Greek, or more intimately know Aristotle may find fault in my summary above, but I'm pretty confident the thrust of the overall argument stands)


 

 

On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 5:51 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope he right, but I am not so sure. 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just normal causation. 

 

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechanisms... we are some brand of behaviorist/materialist who understands intentions to be higher-order patterns of behavior in circumstances. 

 

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something are recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at that point, we either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some weird argument over words, not ideas. 

 

 

 

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

 

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.

 

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

 

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to learn.

 

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

 

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind works. 

 

-J.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Eric Charles <[hidden email]>

Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Come on man.... this shit isn't that hard....

 

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the start. 

 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of "causation".

 

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.

 


 

 

 

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, however boring that may sound.

Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.

These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual actions.

So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.

 

-J. 

 

 

-------- Original message --------

Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought emergence is.

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on “surprise” or “ignorance”.

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 

 

On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.

 

I really like Eric’s analysis. 

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back.

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

 

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

 

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

 

6. Friam is willing to engage.

 

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

 

Eric

 

 

 

On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Nick,

 

" I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."

 

By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Jon,

> 

> Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?

> 

> This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous

> answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 

> 

> I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is

> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 

> 

> Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 

> 

> n

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

>  

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM

> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

> 

> Nick,

> 

> Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for

> instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,

> let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious

> relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.

> Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the

> manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new

> sticks?

> 

> Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog

> filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or

> superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the

> designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they

> were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,

> know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped

> conductive surfaces and coils.

> 

> My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward

> causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly

> flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.

> 

> 

> 

> --

> 

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> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe

> 

> 

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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

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> 

 

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