Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA28723 (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 20:46:04 +0100 Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 20:30:16 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Determinism Message-ID: <20010413203016.A2347@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <F134mz6UuEhjJ8uT6Ss000063dc@hotmail.com>; <20010412193429.A1393@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3AD5F6E0.16979.29DF38@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <3AD5F6E0.16979.29DF38@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 06:41:36PM -0500 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 06:41:36PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On 12 Apr 2001, at 19:34, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > 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.
Sure, the cause only actually acts as such at the same time as the
effect is "actively" being an effect. No prob.
> 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.
Absolutely.
> Causational happenings do not require the
> passage of time or changes in space, for causation is
> instantaneous;
No, there is no reason to believe that. Perhaps you're thinking of
the classic (and classically misleading) billiard ball illustration,
where the period of contact is, in human terms, extremely brief, but
even there it's far from infinitesimal, and I'd guess that it's quite
easily measured, using modern techniques.
> spatiotemporality is occupied solely by the previous
> and subsequent history of the entities concerned.
Seems to me, even if the duration of causation were always absolutely
instantaneous (though I'm convinced it's not -- is anything?), that the
concept of causation requires the causal entity to precede that instant,
and the caused one to survive it. I'd say it's part of the definition of
causation, as that word is normally used, that cause precedes effect.
Now, I can't deny that there might be some specialised usage, of which
I'm not aware, in which that's not the case. But I'd seriously question
the utility of any such usage.
And you're still a long, long way from establishing vertical causation.
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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