On those "the strength of a triangle", and "that triangleness causes strength" suppositions: Bosh. Balderdash. Bushwaw. Bull Puckee.
Everybody knows that triangles are inherently unstable because eventually (and sooner rather than later), the injured party finds out about that third "leg", and then all *Hell* breaks loose. Divorce invariably ensues, and the triangle once more becomes flatland, with nary an angle to be found, much less individual well-arranged legs. Trust me Nick, you don't want to go the triangle route. --Doug On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > If I say that the strength of a triangle is due (in part, obviously) to > the arrangement of its legs, have I "reduced" the the triangle's strength > to the properties of its legs? Well, that depends on what one means by > reduced. If by reduced, one means that only that one has made mention of > the legs in the course of explaining a property of the whole, then, the > explanation is, indeed, a reduction. If, on the other hand, the > requirement of reduction is that the explanation make mention *only of the > properties of the individual parts,* then the explanation fails as a > reduction, because an "arrangement" of legs is not strictly speaking, a > property of the individual legs, themselves. "An arrangement" is already a > nominal emergent of the legs. On this account, an explanation of the > properties of a whole by reference to a temporal or spacial arrangement of > its parts is in fact an explanation of one emergent property by another. > > This seems to open up a crack in the argument that non-reductive > physicalism violates the causal closure of the physical. For, it suggests > that any complete explanation of properties at one level in terms of > properties of another would have at least three steps. The first step is > the emergent to emergent step, showing that nominal emergent properties > lead to other emergent properties. The second step is to identify the > causes of the arrangement, which could be physical causes. The third step > is to show why it is that arrangement in this way facilitates those > properties. These, too, could be physical causes. So, if we now allow > into our concept of causal closure of the physical to include the idea that > arrangements of parts are constraints on the motions and positions of those > parts, can't have a dual account where triangleness causes strength and the > physical properties of the elements of a triangle (the legs and the joints) > cause THAT [triangleness causes strength]. Causal closure of the physical > is complete because if *nominally* emergent properties such as temporal > and spatial arrangement are allowed into the family of physical causes, we > just have a case of physical causes causing physical causes. > > Nick > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > > > > >
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