Russ, inter alia,
The emergentists liked, we are told, to rail against the reification of causes.
Cause is, after all, just a name for the fact that y usually follows x AND
that contingency fits with some ontology we share about how the world works. I
have been punished for thinking in my [metaphorical] head whenever people say x
causes y that x forces y, so I am feeling cautious about causality right now.
But still, what words are we going to substitute? That wasnt a rhetorical
question. What words ARE we going to substitute?
thanks for your comments,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 9/17/2009 10:27:51 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence
It seems to me that "cause" is an extraordinarily slippery word. I'm involved
with a group of people who are looking into "Causality in Complex Systems." One
of the things I did while in Australia this summer was attend one or our
workshops. After thinking quite a bit about causality and after arguing with a
professional Philosopher about what philosophers mean by causality, I've
decided to give up using that term. Instead, what I'm interested in are
explanations. Even that is a difficult term to define clearly. But it seems a
lot less dangerous than causality.
Nick can explain why a triangle is rigid -- although I am taken by the notion
of an "elan triangulaire". But to come up with a "cause" for the rigidity of a
triangle? In my view that's just asking for trouble.
It's important to acknowledge, though, that Nick's explanation will presumably
be predicated on the presumption that the each of the one-by-two sides is
itself rigid. What about explaining that? (That's another example of how
levevls of abstraction build on other levels of abstraction.)
-- Russ_A
On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number.
I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize what
we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was accomplished for
me. I hope others in the group will correct me, particularly any who are not
in Santa FE but who have joined us in our reading from afar.
McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19
century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, etc.,
demonstrated that there were no configurational forces. When we explain the
properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the molecules, electrons
etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that arise from the
configuration of the particles. Elementary Newtonian forces are all we need.
But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the Emergentists. After
all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of the composition of
causes. Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, but nobody has yet
asserted that all causes are forces. Returning to my example of the triangle
made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the strength of the triangle (by
comparison with the relative weakness of the parallelogram), we need not appeal
to any special forces, no "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".
On the other hand, if you would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos
that is strong, you better get at least one triangle into it. In that sense,
the triangular configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the
structural rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE
of the rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause. In short, McLaughlin
does not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all
that is needed for a robust emergentism.
Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
