https://books.google.com/books?id=ccFHXMDXFdEC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&dq=Causation+and+Explanation+Campbell,+O%27Rourke,+Silverstein&hl=en&source=gb_mobile_entity#v=onepage&q=Causation%20and%20Explanation%20Campbell%2C%20O'Rourke%2C%20Silverstein&f=false --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Tue, Aug 20, 2024, 5:12 PM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I hate thought experiments. But I need this one. > > See: > > Book Chapter3: Actual Causes and Thought Experiments > By > > Clark Glymour , > > Frank Wimberly > > MIT Press 2007 > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2024, 2:53 PM Santafe <desm...@santafe.edu> wrote: > >> Second inadequate reply, to Glen, unhappily similar to the first to Jon: >> >> > On Aug 19, 2024, at 23:37, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > There's so much I'd like to say in response to 3 things: 1) to >> formalize and fail is human, 2) necessary (□) vs possible (◇) languages, >> and 3) principle vs generic/privied models. But I'm incompetent to say them. >> > >> > So instead, I'd like to ask whether we (y'all) think a perfectly rigid >> paddle, embedded in a perfectly rigid solid, with a continual twisting >> force on the handle, exhibits "degenerative" symmetry? Of course, such >> things don't exist; and I hate thought experiments. But I need this one. >> >> I got lost here because I don’t know what “degenerative” symmetry is >> meant to refer to. In context of your next para, I see a contrast between >> discrete symmetries, such as the rotations that would preserve a >> crystalline unit cell, versus continuous symmetries, which I need as a >> formal model to derive restoring forces. Is “degenerative” somehow another >> term for the continuous ones? >> >> The question when a continuum model can be seen as a limit of discrete >> models on finer and finer grains, and when one needs it to be an >> independent construct, is interesting. It feels like it goes back to the >> Eleatics. >> >> I have often thought that Zeno’s paradoxes nicely illustrate the things >> you can’t do if you have a mechanics that mathematizes only positions. >> Hamilton sweeps those limitations away by making momentum an independent >> coordinate in a phase space, and in that way granting it status as an >> independent property of objects from their positions (in classical >> mechanics). All the consequences of Noether’s theorem, conservations, >> restoring forces, etc., are formulated in terms of these independent and >> dual properties. With the advent of quantum mechanics, their independence >> becomes even more foundational to the picture of what exists, as a system >> in a momentum eigenstate is really in a completely distinct state from one >> in a position eigenstate. The two are differentiated in something like the >> way traveling waves and standing waves are differentiated in various wave >> mechanicses. >> >> > Similarly, if the paddle+solid could only be in 1 of 2 states, rotation >> 0° and rotation 180°, and would move instantly (1/∞) from one to the other, >> with `NaN` force at every other angle and 100% force at the 2 angles. This >> seems like symmetry as well, but not degenerative. And we could go on to >> add more states to the symmetry (3, 4, ...) to get groups all the way up to >> ∞, somewhere in between where the embedding material becomes liquid, then >> gas, etc. and the "symmetry" is better expressed as a cycle/circle. But I'm >> not actually asking questions about 1D symmetry groups. My question is more >> banal, or tacit, or targeted to those who think with their bodies. When all >> the other non-Arthur peasants try to pull Excalibur out of the stone, my >> guess is they're not thinking it exhibits degenerative symmetry. And that >> implies that normal language is not possible. It's impoverished, for this >> concept. Math-like languages are necessary in the sea of all possible >> languages. The would-be King *must* use math to describe the degenerative >> symmetry. (Missed opportunity in Python's Holy Grail, if you ask me. "I >> didn't vote for you!”) >> >> Here I end with the same one I ended the reply to Jon: I strongly bet >> that much of what people think they believe for “Natural” reasons are >> actually learned beliefs through formal systems. I don’t think farmers >> before Newton had a Cartesian and Newtonian concept of space x time, or >> that they would have been bothered by Einstein. I don’t think they would >> have cared about Einstein any more than they cared about Newton. They had >> some ontology of “things", and the “places” that things *occupy*. And >> probably an ontology of keeping appointments, which in a more formal world >> might entail something analogous to a “theory of mind” construction about >> what other people are doing somewhere else “at the same time” as you are >> doing your thing here. But my default assumption would be that any of this >> only ever took on the rigidities of a Cartesian system after the lived >> practice of Newtonian mechanics had started to make some of its rigid >> entailments part of routine experience. Then it became a struggle to let >> that go when Minkowskian geometry required something different. >> >> I don’t mean to be perverse and excessive in denying the implications of >> folk physics: Probably, had farmers been dragged through it (strongly >> against their will), they would have found QM’s notion that what we >> _should_ call a _thing_ can be characterized by “being at” multiple >> “places” more difficult than Newton’s “thing at a single place”. But I’m >> not sure how much trouble it would have been. Considering the worldviews >> people are proud to claim they hold in various religious and superstitious >> traditions, the things asked from modern physics seem relatively benign as >> imaginative lifts. >> >> Would be nice to have something substantive to say about any of this, >> that would deserve to last. But I don’t think I do. >> >> Eric >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> >
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