FRIAM and CAUSALITY (was NOT "complexity and emergence")

[Nick Thompson]

Dear Eric,

Thanks for your thoughtful response.  I will interline some comments in
CAPS.  I promise I am not SHOUTING.

Nick


> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu>
> To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 12/11/2007 9:20:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and CAUSALITY (was NOT "complexity and
emergence")

>
> Hi Nick,
>
> Given the energy (and time!) apparently available to this thread, it
> is with some trepidation that I poke my head out of the weeds.  (On
> the other hand, congratulations, Steve).
>
> I like your last post about patterns, except for the strong emphasis
> on psychological/mental attribution, if causality is the example we
> wish to talk about.

WELL, THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGIST IN ME IS STARTING TO WONDER IF
HYPOSTATIZATION (!) ISN'T AN ADAPTATION.  BUT BASICALLY, I KNOW MOST ABOUT
THE ISSUE AS IT APPLIES TO PSYCHOLOGY AND ONLY HAVE RECENTLY BECOME AWARE
THAT THE SAME SORTS OF ISSUES CAN BE RAISE WITH RESPECT TO DISPOSITIONS,
PROBABILITY, AND CAUSALITY, AND EVEN CALCULUS.  A THEORY THAT STRONG IS
PROBABLY A BAD THEORY, SO I AM NOT ALTOGETHER HAPPY ABOUT THAT.

 As in the case with data compression or phase

> transitions in condensed-matter physics, it is all fine that someone
> notices the data redundancy or order parameter in the material.  But
> this should only be possible with any reliability if such a pattern is
> available in the system, to be recognized.  My typical (and probably
> tiresome by now) example for the phase transitions is: give me water
> at +1 deg C and -1 deg C at 1 atm pressure, and then apply any
> learning algorithm you like to provide a short algorithm to ask
> whatever questions I put to it about the orientation and motion of the
> molecules, and how they differ in the two samples.  Maybe some
> algorithms won't learn anything useful for short descriptions, but in
> a fair casino I would bet that most of those that do learn anything
> will learn to estimate the order parameter, and then to use it as the
> starting point for quick prediction of many observables.  There simply
> isn't anything else that has particularly changed between the
> properties of the two samples, and everything that has changed is a
> deterministic function of the order parameter, even the moments of all
> the distributions for fluctuations.  And however they name it or
> represent it, I expect that the predictive content of what they learn
> will be more or less the same as that in what we call the order
> parameter (the existence and direction of crystalline orientation).

I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT THIS EXAMPLE.  DO YOU HAVE A REALLY GOOD "SCIENCE
FOR THE CITIZEN" ARTICLE ENTITLED "HOW THINGS FREEZE" I COULD READ?  I
REALLY WOULD READ IT.  

>
> Something like that would seem appropriate to causality, at least for
> the simple forms that we largely understand, such as classical
> dynamics in physics, or Pearl's boolean nets in inference.  To argue
> that psychological/mental attribution is anything beyond one-of-many
> possible learning processes, you would have to convince me that the
> concept of causation is at root a behavioral one -- perhaps some kind
> of agent-patient relation, or even something in the social domain --
> and that as a result the attribution of causation by people contains
> particular aspects that other learning algorithms would not typically
> produce.  For astrology and a large part of the metaphor we apply to
> nations and other institutions, and things of that sort, I would go
> along with this.  Otherwise I counter that the pattern is "in the
> thing (the process in question)", and not particularly in one learner
> versus another, who try to learn about the thing.

HMMM!  I THINK I DON'T QUITE GRASP WHAT YOU ARE SAYING HERE AND I AM AFRAID
I AM BLINDED BY MY OWN PRECONCEPTIONS.  i HOPE THAT OTHERS WILL EXPLAIN IT
TO ME.  

BUT TO TAKE A STAB, IS IT THE CASE THAT YOU SUSPECT THAT THERE ARE NO FACTS
THAT ARE THE CASE WHEN WE ATTRIBUTE MOTIVATION AS A CAUSE OF BEHAVIOR
WHEREAS THERE ARE FACTS THAT ARE THE CASE WHEN WE ATTRIBUTE THE MOVEMENT OF
ONE BILLIARD BALL TO THE MOMENTUM OF ANOTHER THAT STRIKES IT.  IF THAT IS
WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, I WOULD REPLY THAT THE FORMER CLAIM REMAINS
UNESTABLISHED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER BECAUSE THAT TYPE OF RESEARCH HAS NEVER
BEEN DONE.  THE CLOSEST IS CLASSIC ETHOLOGY OF SPECIFIC ACTION PATTERNS AND
NOBODY HAS COME CLOSE TO DOING THAT SORT OF WORK ON HUMANS.  

>
> This small point of dispute, which maybe wouldn't even bother you, is
> quite in keeping with your overall assertion that repeated experience
> is needed to decide whether a pattern is appropriately characterized
> with the logical structure of causality (a properly contextualized if
> not-x, then not-y).
>
> Of course, having agreed with you so far, I suddenly realize that I
> will probably disagree with you now and start an argument, which had I
> known it, would have kept me from starting this note.

IF ARGUMENT WERE TO DIE, I WOULD DIE OF SUFFOCATION A FEW HOURS LATER.  

 If a relation

> (a compressed description of some regularity) is available in a
> process to be learned, and described with the logical structure of
> causality, then in what sense does the system itself care whether the
> learner needs repeated exposure to learn it.  The repetition is a
> feature of the needs of learning algorithms, largely irrespective of
> what they are trying to learn about.  How does it do anything but
> needlessly complicate my description of nature, to suppose that other
> instances than this one (of some process) have anything to do with the
> existence or non-existence of an aspect of the process that admits
> description as causal?  If it exists, the simplest description of its
> existence is whichever one omits all un-needed elements of context;
> such a description would then put its existence in each instance
> without further qualifications.

I DON'T THINK I DISAGREE; I GUESS I THINK THAT THE MINIMUM SATISFYING
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATION WOULD BE A VERY COMPLICATED DIAGRAM, INVOLVING
MANY "INSTANCES" AND NON-"INSTANCES" OF THE CAUSED EVENT AND ITS
PRESUMPTIVE CAUSE.  .  IT IS NOT REALLY WHETHER A PROGRAM COULD LEARN IT
BUT WHAT THE PROGRAM SHOULD SAY ABOUT WHAT IT HAS LEARNED.  BUT REMEMBER, I
AM NOT SURE I AM UNDERSTANDING HERE.
>
> So causation (in ordinary material processes or appropriate branches
> of information theory) is admissible in our descriptions as a property
> of the thing, in each instance, and largely independent of the fact
> that we should be the ones characterizing the thing; the need for
> repeated exposure is a property of us, largely independent of whether
> causal relation or some other pattern is what we will notice in the
> thing.

HMMM!  I DEFINITELY AGREE THAT CAUSALITY IS A THING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
UNINFLUENCED BY WHETHER WE SEE IT OR NOT,  BUT DISAGREE THAT CAN, EVEN
IDEALLY, BE LOCATED IN ANY "INSTANCE".  THAT IS PRECISELY WHY I HAVE TO
KEEP PUTTING "INSTANCE" IN SCARE QUOTES.  >
> Anyway, don't know if those opinions will address what you are after,
> and they are probably less sophisticated than what has already been
> said here.

THANKS FOR SO EXPLICITLY TAKING UP THE ISSUES I RAISED.  PLEASE DONT FEEL
YOU HAVE TO ANSWER.  THE WEEDS NEED YOU

NICK  
>
> All best,
>
> Eric
>