I'll see your bet with: <https://pedermisager.org/blog/seven_basic_rules_for_causal_inference/>
On August 20, 2024 5:59:20 PM PDT, Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com> wrote: >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. >>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
