?The truth arises from arguments amongst friends? -- David Hume
One of my goals at Friam, believe it or not, is actually to get some fundamental issues settled amongst us. We had, last week, a brisk discussion about causality. I don?t think I was particularly articulate, and so, to push that argument forward, I would like to try to state my position clearly and succinctly. The argument was between some who felt that causality was ?real? and those that felt that it was basically a figment of our imaginations. The argument may seem frivolous, but actually becomes of consequence anytime anyone starts to think about how one proves that X is the cause of Y. Intuitively, X is the cause of Y if Y is X?s ?fault?. To say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my current belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I think you convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not have occurred had not X occurred. But there is no particular reason that the world should always be a reasonable place, and therefore, it is also ALWAYS possible to tell an UNREASONABLE story that shows that Y?s occurrence was not the responsibility of X, no matter how reasonable the original causal attribution is. One of us asked for a hammer and nail, claiming that if he could but drive a nail into the surface of one of St. John?s caf? tables, none of us would be silly enough to doubt that his hammering had been the cause of the nails penetration of the table. Not withstanding his certainty on this matter, several of us instantly offered to be JUST THAT SILLY! We would claim, we said, that contrary to his account, his hammering had had nothing to do with the nail?s penetration, but that the accommodating molecules of wood directly under the nail had randomly parted and sucked the nail into their midst. How validate a reasonable causal story against the infinite number of unreasonable causal stories that can always be proposed as alternatives. By experience, obviously. We have seen hundreds of cases where nails were driven into wood when struck by hammers (and a few cases where the hammer missed the nail, the nail remained where it was, and the thumb was driven into the wood.) Also, despite its theoretical possibility, none of us has EVER seen a real world object sucked into a surface by random motion of the surface?s molecules. So it is the comparative analysis of our experience with hammers and nails that would have convinced us that the hammering had driven in the nail. So what is the problem? Why did we not just agree to that proposition and go on? The reason to me is simple: the conventions of our language prevent us from arriving at that conclusion. We not only say that Hammers Cause Nails to embed in tables, which is what we know to be true, we also say that THIS Hammer caused THIS nail to be embedded in the wood. Thus our use of causality is a case of misplaced concreteness. Causality is easily attributed to the pattern of relations amongst hammers and nails, but we err when we allow ourselves to assert that that higher order pattern is exhibited by any of its contributory instances. In fact, that in our experience the missed nails have not been driven into the wood is as much a real part of our notions of causality and hammering as the fact that a hit nail is. Causality just cannot be attributed to an individual instance. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is so widespread in our conversation that we could barely speak without it, but it is a fallacy all the same. Other instances of it are intentions, dispositions, personality traits, communication, information etc., etc., and such mathematical fictions as the slope of a line at a point. Whenever we use any of these terms, we attribute to single instances properties of aggregates of which they are part. Now, how do we stop arguing about this? First of all, we stop and give honor to the enormous amount of information that actually goes into making a rational causal attribution that hammering causes embedding, information which is not available in any of its instances. Second, we then stop and give honor to the incredible power of the human mind to sift through this data and identify patterns in it. Third, and finally, we stop and wonder at whatever flaw it is in our evolution, our neurology, our cognition, our culture, or our language that causes us to lodge this knowledge in the one place it can never be ? single instances. Are we done? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com) Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20071112/72a40857/attachment.html |
But the question you posed wasn't whether you could make a subject
trivial, which anyone can do with any subject I think, but whether you can make it meaningful. Can causality be meaningful is a much more open question that does not have several of the traps built in it seems to me. The one phenomenological dilemma I keep seeing at FRIAM is that we skirt the question of whether one needs to take on the laborious task of inventing a whole new mode of explanation for the systems of the world that have behaviors of their own, or do we just continue bagging them in along with the things that are determined from their surroundings, since that's where we started? Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 2:30 AM To: friam at redfish.com Cc: gbarker at bucknell.edu; pderr at clarku.edu; caleb.thompson Subject: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality ?The truth arises from arguments amongst friends? -- David Hume One of my goals at Friam, believe it or not, is actually to get some fundamental issues settled amongst us. We had, last week, a brisk discussion about causality. I don?t think I was particularly articulate, and so, to push that argument forward, I would like to try to state my position clearly and succinctly. The argument was between some who felt that causality was ?real? and those that felt that it was basically a figment of our imaginations. The argument may seem frivolous, but actually becomes of consequence anytime anyone starts to think about how one proves that X is the cause of Y. Intuitively, X is the cause of Y if Y is X?s ?fault?. To say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my current belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I think you convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not have occurred had not X occurred. But there is no particular reason that the world should always be a reasonable place, and therefore, it is also ALWAYS possible to tell an UNREASONABLE story that shows that Y?s occurrence was not the responsibility of X, no matter how reasonable the original causal attribution is. One of us asked for a hammer and nail, claiming that if he could but drive a nail into the surface of one of St. John?s caf? tables, none of us would be silly enough to doubt that his hammering had been the cause of the nails penetration of the table. Not withstanding his certainty on this matter, several of us instantly offered to be JUST THAT SILLY! We would claim, we said, that contrary to his account, his hammering had had nothing to do with the nail?s penetration, but that the accommodating molecules of wood directly under the nail had randomly parte d and sucked the nail into their midst. How validate a reasonable causal story against the infinite number of unreasonable causal stories that can always be proposed as alternatives. By experience, obviously. We have seen hundreds of cases where nails were driven into wood when struck by hammers (and a few cases where the hammer missed the nail, the nail remained where it was, and the thumb was driven into the wood.) Also, despite its theoretical possibility, none of us has EVER seen a real world object sucked into a surface by random motion of the surface?s molecules. So it is the comparative analysis of our experience with hammers and nails that would have convinced us that the hammering had driven in the nail. So what is the problem? Why did we not just agree to that proposition and go on? The reason to me is simple: the conventions of our language prevent us from arriving at that conclusion. We not only say that Hammers Cause Nails to embed in tables, which is what we know to be true, we also say that THIS Hammer caused THIS nail to be embedded in the wood. Thus our use of causality is a case of misplaced concreteness. Causality is easily attributed to the pattern of relations amongst hammers and nails, but we err when we allow ourselves to assert that that higher order pattern is exhibited by any of its contributory instances. In fact, that in our experience the missed nails have not been driven into the wood is as much a real part of our notions of causality and hammering as the fact that a hit nail is. Causality just cannot be attributed to an individual instance. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is so widespread in our conversation that we could barely speak without it, but it is a fallacy all the same. Other instances of it are intentions, dispositions, personality traits, communication, information etc., etc., and such mathematical fictions as the slope of a line at a point. Whenever we use any of these terms, we attribute to single instances properties of aggregates of which they are part. Now, how do we stop arguing about this? First of all, we stop and give honor to the enormous amount of information that actually goes into making a rational causal attribution that hammering causes embedding, information which is not available in any of its instances. Second, we then stop and give honor to the incredible power of the human mind to sift through this data and identify patterns in it. Third, and finally, we stop and wonder at whatever flaw it is in our evolution, our neurology, our cognition, our culture, or our language that causes us to lodge this knowledge in the one place it can never be single instances. Are we done? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com) Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20071112/ec69e2ae/attachment.html |
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
At that same session, I was going on about the Kochen-Specker theorem,
asking for references, on the basis of Baez's comment about it in "This Week's Finds" at http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week257.html. He was discussion some ideas around the concept of a "topos": "It basically means this: using topos logic, we can talk about a classical space of states for a quantum system! However, this space typically has "no global points" - that's called the "Kochen-Specker theorem". In other words, there's no overall classical reality that matches all the classical snapshots." Since I'd been thinking about locality and structure lately (thus the interest in topoi), that statement seemed kind of remarkable to me, so after asking around I finally got around to looking it up. Wikipedia had little to say, but the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy had a nice discussion: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kochen-specker/#intro Anyhow, based on Nick's intro, parts of that discussion now look germane (situated equivalence!) to this discussion. Carl Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > */?The truth arises from arguments amongst friends?/* -- *David Hume* > > One of my goals at Friam, believe it or not, is actually to get some > fundamental issues settled amongst us. We had, last week, a brisk > discussion about causality. I don?t think I was particularly > articulate, and so, to push that argument forward, I would like to try > to state my position clearly and succinctly. > > The argument was between some who felt that causality was ?real? and > those that felt that it was basically a figment of our imaginations. > The argument may seem frivolous, but actually becomes of consequence > anytime anyone starts to think about how one proves that X is the > cause of Y. Intuitively, X is the cause of Y if Y is X?s ?fault?. To > say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my current > belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I think you > convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling the most > reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not have > occurred had not X occurred. But there is no particular reason that > the world should always be a reasonable place, and therefore, it is > also ALWAYS possible to tell an UNREASONABLE story that shows that Y?s > occurrence was not the responsibility of X, no matter how reasonable > the original causal attribution is. One of us asked for a hammer and > nail, claiming that if he could but drive a nail into the surface of > one of St. John?s caf? tables, none of us would be silly enough to > doubt that his hammering had been the cause of the nails penetration > of the table. Not withstanding his certainty on this matter, several > of us instantly offered to be JUST THAT SILLY! We would claim, we > said, that contrary to his account, his hammering had had nothing to > do with the nail?s penetration, but that the accommodating molecules > of wood directly under the nail had randomly parted and sucked the > nail into their midst. > > How validate a reasonable causal story against the infinite number of > unreasonable causal stories that can always be proposed as > alternatives. By experience, obviously. We have seen hundreds of cases > where nails were driven into wood when struck by hammers (and a few > cases where the hammer missed the nail, the nail remained where it > was, and the thumb was driven into the wood.) Also, despite its > theoretical possibility, none of us has EVER seen a real world object > sucked into a surface by random motion of the surface?s molecules. So > it is the comparative analysis of our experience with hammers and > nails that would have convinced us that the hammering had driven in > the nail. > > So what is the problem? Why did we not just agree to that proposition > and go on? The reason to me is simple: the conventions of our language > prevent us from arriving at that conclusion. We not only say that > Hammers Cause Nails to embed in tables, which is what we know to be > true, we also say that THIS Hammer caused THIS nail to be embedded in > the wood. Thus our use of causality is a case of misplaced > concreteness. Causality is easily attributed to the pattern of > relations amongst hammers and nails, but we err when we allow > ourselves to assert that that higher order pattern is exhibited by any > of its contributory instances. In fact, that in our experience the > missed nails have not been driven into the wood is as much a real part > of our notions of causality and hammering as the fact that a hit nail > is. Causality just cannot be attributed to an individual instance. > > The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is so widespread in our > conversation that we could barely speak without it, but it is a > fallacy all the same. Other instances of it are intentions, > dispositions, personality traits, communication, information etc., > etc., and such mathematical fictions as the slope of a line at a > point. Whenever we use any of these terms, we attribute to single > instances properties of aggregates of which they are part. > > Now, how do we stop arguing about this? First of all, we stop and give > honor to the enormous amount of information that actually goes into > making a rational causal attribution that hammering causes embedding, > information which is not available in any of its instances. Second, we > then stop and give honor to the incredible power of the human mind to > sift through this data and identify patterns in it. Third, and > finally, we stop and wonder at whatever flaw it is in our evolution, > our neurology, our cognition, our culture, or our language that causes > us to lodge this knowledge in the one place it can never be ? single > instances. > > Are we done? > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com > <mailto:nick at redfish.com>) > Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University > (nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu>) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > To say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my > current belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I > think you convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling > the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not > have occurred had not X occurred. > I'm skeptical of the tradition that says we should have predictive models before measuring things in the world or interpreting data. Where does a hypothesis come from? I'd say it is little more than the prior expectations we have about how the world molded into a compact if/then type of story. And just because a model says to measure certain things (out a large universe of possible things to measure) doesn't mean the prescribed measurements are really independent samples, as there is some bias from a scientific culture. Given the advanced technology that exists for automated data collection, let's put aside the story telling (and the dogma that often underlies it) to see if the priors look very promising. For example, using machine learning techniques, infer models from partial data, and then predict the rest. Human experts are often wrong or in conflict, and not always a good source for setting prior expectations. Machines can help with that, by considering thousands or millions of possible explanations for phenomena based on a small number features found in a larger space of observables. When so found using a simple, statistically-sound metric, I really think the `experts' need to look at that result pretty hard. Marcus |
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
At that Friam I was talking about the difference between token causation (or
"actual" causation) and statistical causation (or "type" causation). Here is a Wikipedia article that may help further the discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_mental_causation Frank From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 12:30 AM To: friam at redfish.com Cc: gbarker at bucknell.edu; pderr at clarku.edu; caleb.thompson Subject: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality "The truth arises from arguments amongst friends" -- David Hume One of my goals at Friam, believe it or not, is actually to get some fundamental issues settled amongst us. We had, last week, a brisk discussion about causality. I don't think I was particularly articulate, and so, to push that argument forward, I would like to try to state my position clearly and succinctly. The argument was between some who felt that causality was "real" and those that felt that it was basically a figment of our imaginations. The argument may seem frivolous, but actually becomes of consequence anytime anyone starts to think about how one proves that X is the cause of Y. Intuitively, X is the cause of Y if Y is X's "fault". To say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my current belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I think you convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not have occurred had not X occurred. But there is no particular reason that the world should always be a reasonable place, and therefore, it is also ALWAYS possible to tell an UNREASONABLE story that shows that Y's occurrence was not the responsibility of X, no matter how reasonable the original causal attribution is. One of us asked for a hammer and nail, claiming that if he could but drive a nail into the surface of one of St. John's caf? tables, none of us would be silly enough to doubt that his hammering had been the cause of the nails penetration of the table. Not withstanding his certainty on this matter, several of us instantly offered to be JUST THAT SILLY! We would claim, we said, that contrary to his account, his hammering had had nothing to do with the nail's penetration, but that the accommodating molecules of wood directly under the nail had randomly parted and sucked the nail into their midst. How validate a reasonable causal story against the infinite number of unreasonable causal stories that can always be proposed as alternatives. By experience, obviously. We have seen hundreds of cases where nails were driven into wood when struck by hammers (and a few cases where the hammer missed the nail, the nail remained where it was, and the thumb was driven into the wood.) Also, despite its theoretical possibility, none of us has EVER seen a real world object sucked into a surface by random motion of the surface's molecules. So it is the comparative analysis of our experience with hammers and nails that would have convinced us that the hammering had driven in the nail. So what is the problem? Why did we not just agree to that proposition and go on? The reason to me is simple: the conventions of our language prevent us from arriving at that conclusion. We not only say that Hammers Cause Nails to embed in tables, which is what we know to be true, we also say that THIS Hammer caused THIS nail to be embedded in the wood. Thus our use of causality is a case of misplaced concreteness. Causality is easily attributed to the pattern of relations amongst hammers and nails, but we err when we allow ourselves to assert that that higher order pattern is exhibited by any of its contributory instances. In fact, that in our experience the missed nails have not been driven into the wood is as much a real part of our notions of causality and hammering as the fact that a hit nail is. Causality just cannot be attributed to an individual instance. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is so widespread in our conversation that we could barely speak without it, but it is a fallacy all the same. Other instances of it are intentions, dispositions, personality traits, communication, information etc., etc., and such mathematical fictions as the slope of a line at a point. Whenever we use any of these terms, we attribute to single instances properties of aggregates of which they are part. Now, how do we stop arguing about this? First of all, we stop and give honor to the enormous amount of information that actually goes into making a rational causal attribution that hammering causes embedding, information which is not available in any of its instances. Second, we then stop and give honor to the incredible power of the human mind to sift through this data and identify patterns in it. Third, and finally, we stop and wonder at whatever flaw it is in our evolution, our neurology, our cognition, our culture, or our language that causes us to lodge this knowledge in the one place it can never be . single instances. Are we done? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com) Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthompson at clarku.edu) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20071112/f5d78a81/attachment.html |
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Hi Nick,
I assume you already know about the work Judea Pearl did to define a notion of causality in the context of inference on Boolean networks? I don't have citations on this, because I only learned about it recently in someone's talk, but I gather it is fairly widely known. Happily it doesn't claim to address all questions in which a given kind of word appears, so it probably contributed something concrete to answering a single class of them. What is that old folk saying, said with a sigh? "Always a physicist, never a philosopher." Best, Eric |
Nick / Eric -
Judea Pearl's book "Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference" is actually pretty good -- somewhat technical, and not always convincing (to me :-), but worth reading . . . http://www.amazon.com/Causality-Reasoning-Inference-Judea-Pearl/dp/0521773628/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9833658-1917726?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194901716&sr=8-1 tom On Nov 12, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Hi Nick, > > I assume you already know about the work Judea Pearl did to define a > notion of causality in the context of inference on Boolean networks? > I don't have citations on this, because I only learned about it > recently in someone's talk, but I gather it is fairly widely known. > Happily it doesn't claim to address all questions in which a given > kind of word appears, so it probably contributed something concrete to > answering a single class of them. > > What is that old folk saying, said with a sigh? > "Always a physicist, never a philosopher." > > Best, > > Eric > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > |
Judea Pearl's web site is chock full of papers, too.
http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/jp_home.html -- rec -- On Nov 12, 2007 2:11 PM, Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu> wrote: > Nick / Eric - > > Judea Pearl's book "Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference" is > actually pretty good -- somewhat technical, and not always convincing > (to me :-), but worth reading . . . > > > http://www.amazon.com/Causality-Reasoning-Inference-Judea-Pearl/dp/0521773628/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9833658-1917726?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194901716&sr=8-1 > > tom > > On Nov 12, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > > > Hi Nick, > > > > I assume you already know about the work Judea Pearl did to define a > > notion of causality in the context of inference on Boolean networks? > > I don't have citations on this, because I only learned about it > > recently in someone's talk, but I gather it is fairly widely known. > > Happily it doesn't claim to address all questions in which a given > > kind of word appears, so it probably contributed something concrete to > > answering a single class of them. > > > > What is that old folk saying, said with a sigh? > > "Always a physicist, never a philosopher." > > > > Best, > > > > Eric > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20071112/414b12f0/attachment.html |
In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Sure, data is good to have, but what would past behavior tell you about the novel aspects of new behavior, and how would you be able to tell that from incomplete data on the past, anyway? For original behavior it would seem the usual tools don't help much, unless you do what I do and. turn models around to study what about individual behaviors they miss.
Phil Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[hidden email]> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:17:06 To:The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Cc:gbarker at bucknell.edu, pderr at clarku.edu, "caleb.thompson" <caleb.thompson at sjcsf.edu> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > To say that X is the cause of Y is to accuse X of Y. Given my > current belief that story-telling is at the base of EVERYTHING, I > think you convince somebody that X is the cause of Y just by telling > the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y would not > have occurred had not X occurred. > I'm skeptical of the tradition that says we should have predictive models before measuring things in the world or interpreting data. Where does a hypothesis come from? I'd say it is little more than the prior expectations we have about how the world molded into a compact if/then type of story. And just because a model says to measure certain things (out a large universe of possible things to measure) doesn't mean the prescribed measurements are really independent samples, as there is some bias from a scientific culture. Given the advanced technology that exists for automated data collection, let's put aside the story telling (and the dogma that often underlies it) to see if the priors look very promising. For example, using machine learning techniques, infer models from partial data, and then predict the rest. Human experts are often wrong or in conflict, and not always a good source for setting prior expectations. Machines can help with that, by considering thousands or millions of possible explanations for phenomena based on a small number features found in a larger space of observables. When so found using a simple, statistically-sound metric, I really think the `experts' need to look at that result pretty hard. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
sy at synapse9.com wrote:
> Sure, data is good to have, but what would past behavior tell you about the novel aspects of new behavior, and how would you be able to tell that from incomplete data on the past, anyway? I wasn't really thinking about predicted the future from the past, but rather choosing not to speculate. For example, rather than going to look in some part of a genome for something you think ought to be there, build computerized search codes to look everywhere. Rank order the statistics, and start the modeling at that point, after you can see the big picture of the patterns and relationships that are seen across large independent samples. In any case, the same point applies. If there is poor data, why should the intuitions or models that humans pull out of thin air be good priors? Marcus |
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
NIck,
Didn't you place the only things that physcally cause anything, the individual hammers and the individual nails in the direct action of driving a nail, in the place of the 'unreal' in you argument? The things that don't actually exist except in our minds, the categories of hammers and of nails and their presumptive relation in an orderly arrangement of ideas, you seemed to treat as being real and causal. Doesn't that what you mean depends on what you're using the words to refer to, the physical things on one hand, or the relations of images on the other? Perhaps they're different, and a good bit of the con-fusion occurs as a result of not being clear about which we're referring to. Phil On 11/12/07, Nicholas Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote: > > *"The truth arises from arguments amongst friends"* -- *David Hume* > > > > One of my goals at Friam, believe it or not, is actually to get some > fundamental issues settled amongst us. We had, last week, a brisk > discussion about causality. I don't think I was particularly articulate, > and so, to push that argument forward, I would like to try to state my > position clearly and succinctly. > > > > The argument was between some who felt that causality was "real" and those > that felt that it was basically a figment of our imaginations. The > argument may seem frivolous, but actually becomes of consequence anytime > anyone starts to think about how one proves that X is the cause of Y. Intuitively, > X is the cause of Y if Y is X's "fault". To say that X is the cause of Y > is to accuse X of Y. Given my current belief that story-telling is at > the base of EVERYTHING, I think you convince somebody that X is the cause of > Y just by telling the most reasonable story in which it seems obvious that Y > would not have occurred had not X occurred. But there is no particular > reason that the world should always be a reasonable place, and therefore, it > is also ALWAYS possible to tell an UNREASONABLE story that shows that Y's > occurrence was not the responsibility of X, no matter how reasonable the > original causal attribution is. One of us asked for a hammer and nail, > claiming that if he could but drive a nail into the surface of one of St. > John's caf? tables, none of us would be silly enough to doubt that his > hammering had been the cause of the nails penetration of the table. Not > withstanding his certainty on this matter, several of us instantly offered > to be JUST THAT SILLY! We would claim, we said, that contrary to his > account, his hammering had had nothing to do with the nail's penetration, > but that the accommodating molecules of wood directly under the nail had > randomly parte d and sucked the nail into their midst. > > > > How validate a reasonable causal story against the infinite number of > unreasonable causal stories that can always be proposed as alternatives. By > experience, obviously. We have seen hundreds of cases where nails were > driven into wood when struck by hammers (and a few cases where the hammer > missed the nail, the nail remained where it was, and the thumb was driven > into the wood.) Also, despite its theoretical possibility, none of us has > EVER seen a real world object sucked into a surface by random motion of the > surface's molecules. So it is the comparative analysis of our experience > with hammers and nails that would have convinced us that the hammering had > driven in the nail. > > > > So what is the problem? Why did we not just agree to that > proposition and go on? The reason to me is simple: the conventions of our > language prevent us from arriving at that conclusion. We not only say > that Hammers Cause Nails to embed in tables, which is what we know to be > true, we also say that THIS Hammer caused THIS nail to be embedded in the > wood. Thus our use of causality is a case of misplaced concreteness. Causality > is easily attributed to the pattern of relations amongst hammers and nails, > but we err when we allow ourselves to assert that that higher order pattern > is exhibited by any of its contributory instances. In fact, that in our > experience the missed nails have not been driven into the wood is as much a > real part of our notions of causality and hammering as the fact that a hit > nail is. Causality just cannot be attributed to an individual instance. > > > > > The fallacy of misplaced concreteness is so widespread in our > conversation that we could barely speak without it, but it is a fallacy > all the same. Other instances of it are intentions, dispositions, > personality traits, communication, information etc., etc., and such > mathematical fictions as the slope of a line at a point. Whenever we use > any of these terms, we attribute to single instances properties of > aggregates of which they are part. > > > > Now, how do we stop arguing about this? First of all, we stop > and give honor to the enormous amount of information that actually goes into > making a rational causal attribution that hammering causes embedding, > information which is not available in any of its instances. Second, we > then stop and give honor to the incredible power of the human mind to sift > through this data and identify patterns in it. Third, and finally, we > stop and wonder at whatever flaw it is in our evolution, our neurology, our > cognition, our culture, or our language that causes us to lodge this > knowledge in the one place it can never be ? single instances. > > > > Are we done? > > > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com) > Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ( > nthompson at clarku.edu) > > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 explorations: www.synapse9.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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