Phil,
For give me for being dense, but I couldnt see the connection between my probe
and your response. Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Henshaw
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; caleb.thompson
Sent: 11/12/2007 5:53:01 AM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] FRIAM and causality
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: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
explorations: www.synapse9.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 2:30 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 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 dont 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 Xs 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 Ys 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. Johns 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 nails 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 surfaces 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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])============================================================
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