Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA26714 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 13 Apr 2001 00:39:00 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 18:41:36 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Determinism Message-ID: <3AD5F6E0.16979.29DF38@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010412193429.A1393@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <F134mz6UuEhjJ8uT6Ss000063dc@hotmail.com>; from ecphoric@hotmail.com on Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 12:23:48PM -0400 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 12 Apr 2001, at 19:34, Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 12:23:48PM -0400, Scott Chase wrote:
> > >
> > Isn't the overall caual flow from the bottom up and wouldn't "top"
> > components decompose to lesser levels, though not amenable to
> > limited methods of investigation?
>
> If higher level entities are lower level ones, aggregated, then there
> can be no causal flow top-down *or* bottom-up. Causation has an
> ineliminable element of time, and in this model, time is horizontal
> while hierarchy is vertical, restricting causation to the horizontal
> dimension. This is very simple, and, I think, absolutely
> unanswerable.
>
Actually, umm, err, no. A cause does not become a cause
until it causes an effect, and an effect is only an effect once it is
caused. These terms are correlatively defining, and their referents
are correlatively grounding. A cause becomes a cause at the
same precise moment that an effect is effected; it is a
simultaneous event with respect to the two entities involved. The
causal entity may exist prior to becoming a cause, with the
potential of becoming a cause, and the effected entity may perdure
after it is caused, with the history of once having been caused, but
the happening - causation - necessarily involves the spatiotemporal
contiguity of the two. Causational happenings do not require the
passage of time or changes in space, for causation is
instantaneous; spatiotemporality is occupied solely by the previous
and subsequent history of the entities concerned.
Decisions to effect a cause, however, can occur prior to their
actual effectuation. One may decide to read a book or look at a
picture before actually doing so; in such cases, the decision did
indeed cause the accessing of the particular neuronal pattern
configurations flitting through the material substrate brain which are
correlative to the subjective experience of the reading or viewing.
Plus there is aggregation plus relation; this plus gets lost in the
simplistic attempt to reduce higher level holistic gestalts into
polyfurcated lower level components.
> --
> Robin Faichney
> Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org
> (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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