FRIAM and causality
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Friends,
Darn it! I cant get anybody to tangle with the fundamental thing I am saying here. Anytime we embody something that is true of the aggregate of observables in a single unobservable case, we are committing a fallacy. The locus classicus of this fallacy is mental causation, where we hypostize our awareness of a pattern of a person's behavior and lodge it in an unobservable event with in his "mind" (or brain, it really doesn't matter). Here the problem is at its most obscene, but it lurks elsewhere. I am puzzling here how to put the point in the MOST ANNOYING WAY POSSIBLE, so that SOMEBODY will feel obligated to address it. Let's try this: To say that a probability attaches to an event at an instant is to commit this fallacy. What we know is a past relative frequency of relevant conditions and relevant consequences. Instantaneous probability is a fiction. OK. so perhaps it's a heuristic fiction. Well, not if it directs attention away from the evaluation of our knowledge, concerning the relative frequency of events. Perhaps another way make this point is that "cause" is an emergent. "Cause" is just another one of those misattributions. We saw the hammer hit the nail, but to say that the Hammer caused the nail to penetrate the wood is to invent an unobservable, an instantaneous "cause". Like most people, I would prefer to be stoned to death than be ignored. 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: 11/12/2007 1:29:08 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality > > 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 |
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Hash: SHA1 Nicholas Thompson on 11/12/2007 08:10 PM: > Darn it! I cant get anybody to tangle with the fundamental thing I am > saying here. Anytime we embody something that is true of the aggregate of > [...] > Like most people, I would prefer to be stoned to death than be ignored. You just don't have enough patience! I intended to reply. But, I had my hands full today. I've been trying to point out this fallacy on a political mailing list over the past month or so. My point has been that most people seem to bitch about bodies like Congress or any other clique like Republicans by committing this fallacy. Basically, they ascribe the attributes of individuals to collectives. Now, that may not seem like the same fallacy; but it is. And the first thing you need to do to gain traction on the problem is to at least begin delineating all the ways in which collectives are different and the same as their constituents. One of those differences is complexity. Cause is complex. Yes, you're right that the statement hammer causes embedded nail relies on the fallacy of applying a generic tendency (lots of hammers tend to result in lots of embedded nails) to a particular. However, there's a _more_ important fallacy in the attribution of cause. That is cause-effect are not chains. They're not total orders. They're not linear or sequential. Every effect has multiple (usually a dense infinity) causes. And every cause has multiple (usually a dense infinity) of effects. And the causes and effects are inextricably intertwined. The collective vs. individual distinction you're making pales in comparison to the arbitrary discretization of causality. Sorry, that's the best you get on short notice. [grin] - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power. -- Malcolm X -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHOS3LZeB+vOTnLkoRAl0wAJ9WKOJkV3izTt+Za6oGT6NJdQEpkQCeLz+Z a4tw0z0tzjVJrbT7qEa3AcA= =rIoJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Let's try this: To say that a probability attaches to an event at an > instant is to commit this fallacy. What we know is a past relative > frequency of relevant conditions and relevant consequences. Instantaneous > probability is a fiction. > > "Cause" is just another one of those misattributions. We saw the hammer > hit the nail, but to say that the Hammer caused the nail to penetrate the > wood is to invent an unobservable, an instantaneous "cause". > It might be useful to consider more stuff before we get too excited about this whole hammer embeds nail story! If we watch a bunch of nails real close, we might notice that penetration in wood is sometimes preceded by being inside artifacts called nail guns or inside artifacts known as IEDs. Just grabbing on to a larger nail and randomly swinging it around at stuff it might just stick into something. Then we might wonder what does swinging around big nails and nailguns and hammers and improvised explosive devices have in common? Hmm.. Or we might notice that nails are taken away from these things called hardware stores by people that give the people in the hardware stores green pieces of paper. Where do those green pieces of paper go? Ah ha! Why do you bring the nails, person that takes the money from the person that goes to the hardware store? You say you make that nail thing and it is mostly used to hold stuff together using one-time application of directed energy and friction?! Glad I asked! :-) |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nick,
I'm glad you clarified, and it's a valid poit. My reply wasn't too far off. The problem is that to study what IS happeniing rather than what SHOULD BE (locating cause where it occurs rather than in unobservable imaginery events) requires a new method. Phil Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:10:11 To:"friam" <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality Friends, Darn it! I cant get anybody to tangle with the fundamental thing I am saying here. Anytime we embody something that is true of the aggregate of observables in a single unobservable case, we are committing a fallacy. The locus classicus of this fallacy is mental causation, where we hypostize our awareness of a pattern of a person's behavior and lodge it in an unobservable event with in his "mind" (or brain, it really doesn't matter). Here the problem is at its most obscene, but it lurks elsewhere. I am puzzling here how to put the point in the MOST ANNOYING WAY POSSIBLE, so that SOMEBODY will feel obligated to address it. Let's try this: To say that a probability attaches to an event at an instant is to commit this fallacy. What we know is a past relative frequency of relevant conditions and relevant consequences. Instantaneous probability is a fiction. OK. so perhaps it's a heuristic fiction. Well, not if it directs attention away from the evaluation of our knowledge, concerning the relative frequency of events. Perhaps another way make this point is that "cause" is an emergent. "Cause" is just another one of those misattributions. We saw the hammer hit the nail, but to say that the Hammer caused the nail to penetrate the wood is to invent an unobservable, an instantaneous "cause". Like most people, I would prefer to be stoned to death than be ignored. 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: 11/12/2007 1:29:08 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality > > 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 |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Thank you Roger and Frank and Tom,
I hadn't looked up any of this material on Pearl, and really need to learn it. Indeed, I think it was at Nihat's talk that I saw it the first time, as you suggested, Frank. Nick, two things, which because I can't do them justice may be too much like stoning, but at least won't be like being ignored: I would really push to change your mind about probabilities. This may annoy you, but I think it is right to say that a probability is a number that, within the context of an appropriate set of other numbers, obeys the axioms of probability theory. Here I am again advocating the development in the first couple chapters of Jaynes's Probability Theory: the logic of science. These numbers need not refer to frequencies, past, present, or otherwise. They could be components in a gambler's algorithm for taking future deterministic actions which are functions of evidence. The gambler need not be competent, or even sane, but I am assuming for the purpose of this example that he is capable of producing or in some other manner acquiring numbers that do satisfy the axioms of probability theory. They can be representations of "plausibility" as Jaynes uses the term, which again are more in the nature of components in a cognitive algorithm than representations of sample outcomes. I push this point for what I believe to be the same reason as you bring probabilities into the discussion of causality. There are lots of kinds of logical constructions which can profitably be treated as "things" in a syntactic sense, and probabilities can appear among the list of "things" so treated. The relation of algorithms to experience is a somewhat different matter. A second point, to which I will do even less justice. You brush up against a question that has been of interest to several of us, and which I do not think has been well treated. In talking about the causer of an event as the one who you can blame for it, you bring in the role of narrative, as a particular kind of context-setting framework. It is an intriguing question in all those areas that go away from easy decomposability toward more context dependence and potentially more historical contingency, what is the right model for the source of confidence. For historians, in their own words, that source is narrative. I think the question of how narrative as a source for confidence relates to logic as a source begs for a Bayesian treatment, in which we ask structural questions about the nature of forward models in relation to priors. All best, Eric On Nov 12, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Friends, > > Darn it! I cant get anybody to tangle with the fundamental thing I am > saying here. Anytime we embody something that is true of the > aggregate of > observables in a single unobservable case, we are committing a > fallacy. > The locus classicus of this fallacy is mental causation, where we > hypostize > our awareness of a pattern of a person's behavior and lodge it in an > unobservable event with in his "mind" (or brain, it really doesn't > matter). > Here the problem is at its most obscene, but it lurks elsewhere. > > I am puzzling here how to put the point in the MOST ANNOYING WAY > POSSIBLE, > so that SOMEBODY will feel obligated to address it. > > Let's try this: To say that a probability attaches to an event at an > instant is to commit this fallacy. What we know is a past relative > frequency of relevant conditions and relevant consequences. > Instantaneous > probability is a fiction. > > OK. so perhaps it's a heuristic fiction. Well, not if it directs > attention away from the evaluation of our knowledge, concerning the > relative frequency of events. Perhaps another way make this > point is > that "cause" is an emergent. > > "Cause" is just another one of those misattributions. We saw the > hammer > hit the nail, but to say that the Hammer caused the nail to > penetrate the > wood is to invent an unobservable, an instantaneous "cause". > > Like most people, I would prefer to be stoned to death than be > ignored. > > 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: 11/12/2007 1:29:08 PM >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality >> >> 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 |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
Hi,
That is cause-effect are > not chains. They're not total orders. They're not linear or > sequential. Every effect has multiple (usually a dense infinity) > causes. And every cause has multiple (usually a dense infinity) of > effects. And the causes and effects are inextricably intertwined. But orderability of events follows from Special Relativity. How do you reconcile that? I am very skeptical of all attempts to dilute the concept of causality (same (skepticism) goes for retrocausality (see other thread), which seems to inspire people but which has never been convincingly shown to exist). Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Regards, G?nther -- G?nther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org |
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl on 11/16/2007 03:36 AM: > But orderability of events follows from Special Relativity. How do you > reconcile that? I suspect the "orderability" only requires partial orders rather than total orders. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. -- George W. Bush -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHPbKWZeB+vOTnLkoRAvpMAKCk0L32cB7fV0SLNQ9LAgEEm0nkzgCgtMKw KN+VFWtf21ntT3iBgOrD40k= =z9el -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Hi Glen,
> I suspect the "orderability" only requires partial orders rather than > total orders. yes, but relativity implies locality - that means all causes for A and all effects of A would have to be in the past/future light cone. So for the causality at point A you would have total ordering. If things out of the light cone are not comparable - who cares? - they don't affect A anyway. Regards, G?nther -- G?nther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org |
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl on 11/16/2007 12:30 PM: >> I suspect the "orderability" only requires partial orders rather than >> total orders. > > yes, but relativity implies locality - that means all causes for A and > all effects of A would have to be in the past/future light cone. So for > the causality at point A you would have total ordering. Well, my primary objection is that "A" is only post-observation description or pre-observation prescription determined to be a _unit_. My original point was that all cause is complex and all effect is complex. Perhaps I didn't say that clearly. This means that there really isn't an "A" as an (a single, autonomous) effect. "A" is a _situation_ that obtains. And that situation consists of many things. I.e. "A" is embedded inextricably in a context. Granted, one can hyper-focus some observation so as to artificially label some slice of the situation and call that slice the unit "A". But, that's an act of either description or prescription and is merely a _model_ of the situation (often an impoverished one at that). Hence, what you really have in the light cone is a gooey glob of effects and causes that are related by partial order. This will be true as long as the "locality" is not small enough to hit the quantum discretization boundary. Does that make more sense? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. -- Hermann Hesse -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHPgUbZeB+vOTnLkoRAsYxAJ0bekTJTJHVwsfhe79qEEfdxvWb7QCgpdQY 8O1fWyLa/GDzGr2F29a5UGQ= =jw1T -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Glen E. P. Ropella wrote:
> Granted, one can hyper-focus some observation so as to artificially > label some slice of the situation and call that slice the unit "A". > But, that's an act of either description or prescription and is merely a > _model_ of the situation (often an impoverished one at that). > So we make the model better by using a larger/different network of interactions instead of a (misplaced) slice, and try again! Then on to the next problem... Marcus |
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Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels on 11/16/2007 02:04 PM: > So we make the model better by using a larger/different network of > interactions instead of a (misplaced) slice, and try again! > Then on to the next problem... Well, sure. But, my comment was about Nick's claim that the fallacy of misplaced concreteness was the primary obstacle to agreement about causal relationships. My response was that another (more important in my opinion) obstacle is that causes and effects are complex. Hence, one cannot say X causes Y if X or Y is some discrete thing. The only accurate statement is situation Y obtains as a consequence of situation X. I don't imply that approximations cannot be obtained by taking various slices of X {x1, ..., xn} and Y {y1, ..., ym} and examining the sub-inference from xi -> yj. But, there will always be room for skepticism that your particular slices adequately capture the cause and effect relationship. Hence, a seemingly simple question about whether or not hammers cause nails to be embedded into wood will always be arguable. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. -- George W. Bush -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHPhs4ZeB+vOTnLkoRApOuAJ9O44tgRN0MQl/wucFroKEyl4DVVwCgk+1v 3RUJeKmRBDwN0GmcAqTFqQI= =iX/o -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Glen E. P. Ropella wrote:
> I don't imply that approximations cannot be obtained by taking various > slices of X {x1, ..., xn} and Y {y1, ..., ym} and examining the > sub-inference from xi -> yj. But, there will always be room for > skepticism that your particular slices adequately capture the cause and > effect relationship. A model either gives an edge on prediction or it doesn't. It is quantifiable provided there is consensus on the available variety of available input and output measurements and many such measurements. If someone wants to be skeptical of a model that has never made a bad call in a millions of circumstances, that's fine but at some point one has to wonder if they are philosophy students. |
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Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels on 11/16/2007 04:35 PM: > A model either gives an edge on prediction or it doesn't. It is > quantifiable provided there is consensus on the available variety of > available input and output measurements and many such measurements. If > someone wants to be skeptical of a model that has never made a bad call > in a millions of circumstances, that's fine but at some point one has to > wonder if they are philosophy students. No truer words were ever spoken. [grin] - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so. -- Bertrand Russell -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHPkV8ZeB+vOTnLkoRAiI3AJ40fZyihMVtLQ+xJSNjmoH96yGLDwCfRDA3 WcnS5uIHWAVMN0hM1lST4r8= =eTZr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
Hi,
> Well, my primary objection is that "A" is only post-observation > description or pre-observation prescription determined to be a _unit_. > My original point was that all cause is complex and all effect is > complex. Perhaps I didn't say that clearly. Ok - we agree so far. > This means that there really isn't an "A" as an (a single, autonomous) > effect. "A" is a _situation_ that obtains. And that situation consists > of many things. I.e. "A" is embedded inextricably in a context. Agreed. > Granted, one can hyper-focus some observation so as to artificially > label some slice of the situation and call that slice the unit "A". > But, that's an act of either description or prescription and is merely a > _model_ of the situation (often an impoverished one at that). > Hence, what you really have in the light cone is a gooey glob of effects > and causes that are related by partial order. This will be true as long > as the "locality" is not small enough to hit the quantum discretization > boundary. > > Does that make more sense? Ok - but the gooey glob is also only a description - we can extend the gooey glob to contain the whole universe (the Hubble volume). Would you say that at that level we have total ordering? I guess the problem boils back down to the question of a deterministic universe or an indeterministic one. Only if you subscribe to indeterminism partial ordering arises. And to the hammer/nail question: in the macroworld determinism well established (because even if one assumes totally indet. quantum fluctuations they would cancel out). How could you ever get a partial odering in the hammer/nail question? Regards, G?nther -- G?nther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org |
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
Well, considering that we're trying to answer questions about physical
things which remain undefinable, and keep reverting to discussing abstractions we can simply define but have only vague relation to the objects of the physial world, I'd say we still seem to have lost our car keys in the dark alley but prefer looking for them under the street light... Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.???? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Glen E. P. Ropella > Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 5:36 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Marcus G. Daniels on 11/16/2007 02:04 PM: > > So we make the model better by using a larger/different network of > > interactions instead of a (misplaced) slice, and try again! > > Then on to the next problem... > > Well, sure. But, my comment was about Nick's claim that the > fallacy of misplaced concreteness was the primary obstacle to > agreement about causal relationships. My response was that > another (more important in my opinion) obstacle is that > causes and effects are complex. Hence, one cannot say X > causes Y if X or Y is some discrete thing. The only accurate > statement is situation Y obtains as a consequence of situation X. > > I don't imply that approximations cannot be obtained by > taking various slices of X {x1, ..., xn} and Y {y1, ..., ym} > and examining the sub-inference from xi -> yj. But, there > will always be room for skepticism that your particular > slices adequately capture the cause and effect relationship. > Hence, a seemingly simple question about whether or not > hammers cause nails to be embedded into wood will always be arguable. > > - -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com > You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, > that is fantastic that you're doing that. -- George W. Bush > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFHPhs4ZeB+vOTnLkoRApOuAJ9O44tgRN0MQl/wucFroKEyl4DVVwCgk+1v > 3RUJeKmRBDwN0GmcAqTFqQI= > =iX/o > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > ============================================================ > 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 > > |
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In reply to this post by Günther Greindl
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl on 11/17/2007 01:12 PM: > Ok - but the gooey glob is also only a description - we can extend the > gooey glob to contain the whole universe (the Hubble volume). Would you > say that at that level we have total ordering? I CANNOT extend the gooey glob to contain the whole universe. And I doubt that you can, either. [grin] But, I don't know that for sure. I'm not being entirely facetious, here. Partial ordering is a consequence of locality. And locality seems fundamental to what we understand about the universe (which is why entanglement is so freaky to us). So, I suspect "the universe" is actually an ill-formed and delusional concept, perhaps even meaningless. Nothing is universal. Everything is local. Even if I could pretend to have enough information for that sort of extension and just gloss over all the parts of which I'm ignorant, I doubt that I would suggest it is totally ordered, regardless of whether the ordering index is time or not. > I guess the problem boils back down to the question of a deterministic > universe or an indeterministic one. I don't see it that way. I see it as boiling back to the question of universality versus locality. But, [in]determinism may well just be a particular dichotomy within the whole class of universal vs. local dichotomies. > Only if you subscribe to indeterminism partial ordering arises. > > And to the hammer/nail question: in the macroworld determinism well > established (because even if one assumes totally indet. quantum > fluctuations they would cancel out). > > How could you ever get a partial odering in the hammer/nail question? Even in a determined universe, you could _perceive_, react to, or act upon, partial orders. Partial orders come about through ignorance just as well as through stochasticity or parallelism. Phil's "arousal of his arm in preparation for the targeted explosion of effort" highlights that quite well. Our ignorance of the complex cause for human hammering (no nail required ... just a human and a hammer) leads us to quantify "the hammering arm" into one big lump. But, in reality, it's a complex process that requires time and consists of many interwoven effects, not all of them caused by the thoughts in the hammerist's mind. To see that concretely, all we need do is define an experiment studying the differences between the hammering done by people with all 5 fingers versus the hammering done by people with fewer fingers, or even the hammering done by robot versus the hammering done by humans. Such distinctions do NOT require one to consider [in]determinism. But, they do require one to consider historical accumulation and canalization of causes, i.e. where and how ignorance (particularly of "negligible" influences e.g. events very FAR away in space or time) affects causality. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Reprove not an arrogant man, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. -- Proverbs 9:8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHQeFfZeB+vOTnLkoRAj4NAKCBjuHAXE4VrA9iNroqynecCNWtGgCg1b2C m+QaAki9+KuGW6UyBesxANY= =UD3Q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Hi,
>> Ok - but the gooey glob is also only a description - we can extend the > I CANNOT extend the gooey glob to contain the whole universe. And I > doubt that you can, either. [grin] But, I don't know that for sure. OK, point for you ;-) What I meant is the distinction epistemological problem vs reality. > I'm not being entirely facetious, here. Partial ordering is a > consequence of locality. And locality seems fundamental to what we > understand about the universe (which is why entanglement is so freaky to > us). I thought it through and you are right - total ordering is bogus. What I probably meant (intuitively) is not a total ordering, but a partial ordering where every element has a supremum/infimum - a lattice (I think; but that requires two operations, and we only want one (ordering)); at least something where you can draw a Hasse diagram (with the events). Or do you believe/mean that from localty follows the weakest form of partial ordering - that is that _no_ form of hierarchy can be imposed upon certain events. > So, I suspect "the universe" is actually an ill-formed and > delusional concept, perhaps even meaningless. Nothing is universal. > Everything is local. So you probably won't even support sup/inf hierarchy, I gather; I'm no Relativity pundit - do you think that follows from SR or is it a philosophical view? >> I guess the problem boils back down to the question of a deterministic >> universe or an indeterministic one. > > I don't see it that way. I see it as boiling back to the question of > universality versus locality. Agreed (see above) > Such distinctions do NOT require one to consider [in]determinism. But, > they do require one to consider historical accumulation and canalization > of causes, i.e. where and how ignorance (particularly of "negligible" > influences e.g. events very FAR away in space or time) affects causality. Ok, I see what you mean - but just to be careful with terminology: I guess you mean "affects the process under investigation causally" and not "affects causality" (last two words above paragraph) Former interpretation: we agree. Latter interpretation: we should discuss ;-)) Cheers, G?nther -- G?nther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna guenther.greindl at univie.ac.at http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org |
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Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl on 11/21/2007 04:48 PM: > So you probably won't even support sup/inf hierarchy, I gather; I'm no > Relativity pundit - do you think that follows from SR or is it a > philosophical view? It's somewhere in between. But I don't derive the principle from SR. I derive it from everyday experience. I tend to believe that any measure (including relative ones like ordering and sup/inf) are mere aspects of the underlying relations. So, it's not that I don't support hierarchy. To the contrary, I assume every actual system has an inherent "hierarchicability" (following the word "extensibility") with respect to any observer(s). In other words, a system can be projected onto any ordering, depending on the attributes imputed by the projection. No single ordering will tell us much about the system because (assuming it's accurate) it only shows us one aspect (interpretation, usage) of the system. In order to make a claim that we've identified a cause-effect graph, we have to make several (in some cases infinite) projections based on various imputed attributes. >> Such distinctions do NOT require one to consider [in]determinism. But, >> they do require one to consider historical accumulation and canalization >> of causes, i.e. where and how ignorance (particularly of "negligible" >> influences e.g. events very FAR away in space or time) affects causality. > > Ok, I see what you mean - but just to be careful with terminology: I > guess you mean "affects the process under investigation causally" and > not "affects causality" (last two words above paragraph) > Former interpretation: we agree. Latter interpretation: we should > discuss ;-)) Hmmm. At first blush, I'd say I agree with _both_ phrasings. I'd say (weakly) that ignorance -affects the process under investigation causally-. And I'd say (strongly) that ignorance -affects causality-. How do those phrases make a difference to you? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. -- Frank Zappa -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHSrMwZeB+vOTnLkoRAnBEAKDUVstCXsAVcclg8ASwwkT7B3peXACeLKzm uExfuxs71G/8vLHcUXzu2fM= =02+D -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Glen,
Nearly all you say fits closely with my approach, except the word 'any' in the following quote. " To the contrary, I assume every actual system has an inherent "hierarchicability" (following the word "extensibility") with respect to any observer(s). In other words, a system can be projected onto any ordering, depending on the attributes imputed by the projection." If you insert 'an' there instead, the combination of the possible and discovered orderings will reveal an image of other things. Phil Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Glen E. P. Ropella" <[hidden email]> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:51:12 To:The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 G?nther Greindl on 11/21/2007 04:48 PM: > So you probably won't even support sup/inf hierarchy, I gather; I'm no > Relativity pundit - do you think that follows from SR or is it a > philosophical view? It's somewhere in between. But I don't derive the principle from SR. I derive it from everyday experience. I tend to believe that any measure (including relative ones like ordering and sup/inf) are mere aspects of the underlying relations. So, it's not that I don't support hierarchy. To the contrary, I assume every actual system has an inherent "hierarchicability" (following the word "extensibility") with respect to any observer(s). In other words, a system can be projected onto any ordering, depending on the attributes imputed by the projection. No single ordering will tell us much about the system because (assuming it's accurate) it only shows us one aspect (interpretation, usage) of the system. In order to make a claim that we've identified a cause-effect graph, we have to make several (in some cases infinite) projections based on various imputed attributes. >> Such distinctions do NOT require one to consider [in]determinism. But, >> they do require one to consider historical accumulation and canalization >> of causes, i.e. where and how ignorance (particularly of "negligible" >> influences e.g. events very FAR away in space or time) affects causality. > > Ok, I see what you mean - but just to be careful with terminology: I > guess you mean "affects the process under investigation causally" and > not "affects causality" (last two words above paragraph) > Former interpretation: we agree. Latter interpretation: we should > discuss ;-)) Hmmm. At first blush, I'd say I agree with _both_ phrasings. I'd say (weakly) that ignorance -affects the process under investigation causally-. And I'd say (strongly) that ignorance -affects causality-. How do those phrases make a difference to you? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. -- Frank Zappa -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHSrMwZeB+vOTnLkoRAnBEAKDUVstCXsAVcclg8ASwwkT7B3peXACeLKzm uExfuxs71G/8vLHcUXzu2fM= =02+D -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ 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 |
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Hash: SHA1 sy at synapse9.com on 11/27/2007 06:05 AM: > Nearly all you say fits closely with my approach, except the word > 'any' in the following quote. > > "To the contrary, I assume every actual system has an inherent > 'hierarchicability' (following the word 'extensibility') with respect > to any observer(s). In other words, a system can be projected onto > any ordering, depending on the attributes imputed by the projection." > > > If you insert 'an' there instead, the combination of the possible and > discovered orderings will reveal an image of other things. Good point. I was just thinking this over as I read Esfeld's review (thanks G?nther). On the one hand, the system can be projected onto _any_ ordering. But, as I think you're pointing out, some orderings will be a close fit ("natural") and others will be like putting a square peg into a round hole. So, some projections will work better than others. (I have to qualify that with "for a particular purpose" however. ;-) And the projections that work best provide a better measure of the system than others (for that particular purpose). The part of Esfeld's review that got me thinking this way was the idea that nonseparability and holism do not necessarily imply that we cannot understand a system. Similarly, the "hierarchicability" concept I used is not intended to imply that all imputations of hierarchy/order are equally [use|meaning]ful. Another thought that keeps ricocheting around in my head is the problem of my use of the word "ignorance". My usage of the word is often challenged; but, I keep using it anyway. [grin] I'm stubborn. But, by "ignorance", I don't _merely_ mean "lack of knowledge" of a given person or a set of people. It also means the act or possibility of some influence (element of cause) being negligible ... or marginalized. This semantic hair splitting comes up in the Esfeld review, too, when he says: "In none of these interpretations is any link from nonseparability and holism to our ignorance of what nature is in itself." If I use my definition of "ignorance", then nonseparability and holism _do_ imply that a form of ignorance (i.e. the marginalization of particular influences) always obtains. Because we cannot know or understand _everything_... because our models, by definition, cannot ever be completely accurate, we _must_ consider some parts negligible. (And by "we", I mean "any bounded entity that uses transduction across that boundary to understand its environment" ... e.g. trees, ants, cells, humans, etc.) In the case of complex cause, we can make multiple projections into various orderings and select the ones that work best (for a particular purpose). By such selection we can _approach_ an accurate understanding of the system; but it is a limit process. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program. -- Milton Friedman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHTDFSZeB+vOTnLkoRAkIkAJ9mrSUXXLc6xlRU9Z/Mi7IyDT6kWQCg40pi AQ+O5hTPgb73a/9/ZrKBfio= =WfS3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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