Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA14613 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 30 Apr 2001 20:23:42 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 14:26:04 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: The Tipping Point Message-ID: <3AED75FC.28437.3E6CC1@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010430193258.C642@ii01.org> References: <3AEC5655.21049.36C0AA@localhost>; from joedees@bellsouth.net on Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 05:58:45PM -0500 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 30 Apr 2001, at 19:32, Robin Faichney wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 05:58:45PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On 29 Apr 2001, at 11:52, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > On Thu, Apr
> 26, 2001 at 04:19:19PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote: > > > On 26
> Apr 2001, at 10:15, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > On Sun, Apr > > 22,
> 2001 at 10:36:45PM -0500, joedees@bellsouth.net wrote: > > > On 21 > >
> Apr 2001, at 17:28, Robin Faichney wrote: > > > Is it really > > wrong
> > > to focus in on just part of a system? > > > No, but it will not >
> > > > result in all the knowledge that can be gleaned > even about
> that > > > > part, without considering its function in the greater >
> whole of which > > > > it is a part. > > > > We can't gain "all the
> knowledge" at once, > > can we? Surely we have to > > focus on the
> individual parts of a > > system, one at a time, as well as > > taking
> an overview, if we really > > want "all the knowledge". > > > It can
> be useful, but its usefulness > > will of necessity be limited. > > >
> > Isn't it the case that focusing on the individual parts of a system,
> > > one at a time, as well as taking an overview, is *essential* for a
> > > complete picture? > > > Both are necessary, and neither is
> sufficient. Both components > and their interactions are required for
> systemic understanding.
>
> Well thank you for that. Had to drag it out of you, though, didn't I?
>
You're the one who refuses to recognize the necessity of
considering the emergent synergistic self-systems as causally
efficient. I have ALWAYS recognized the need to mereologically
consider parts and wholes, including the interactions between parts
and their feedback and feedforward loops. It has been YOU who
have repeatedly demonstrated regrettably obtuse tendencies
towards atomistic and simplistic reductionism.
>
> > > To rephrase my main point: to see a chain of causation
> > > [grain properties+relationships -> tipping point -> grain
> > > disposition] violates the principle of Occam's Razor, when the
> > > causal chain [grain properties+relationships -> grain disposition]
> > > completely explains the phenomenon.
> > >
> > Actually, the last part of that razor states "which accounts for all
> > the observations"; you realize this, and attempt to show how an
> > understanding of the tipping point is nevessary for such an
> > accounting. However, the tipping point itself is one of the
> > phenomena to be accounted for, and it does possess explanatory force
> > with regard to individual grain disposition, drawing the
> > dispositions of many individual grains under a single principle,
> > which considering them atomistically does not do. In other words,
> > the understanding of the tipping point more efficiently accounts for
> > the behavior of multiple grains as a class, rather than having to
> > undergo diophantine contortions over and over for each grain.
>
> Of course it's more convenient to look at the higher level, but that's
> irrelevant. The question is, how do we get there: how do the lower
> level events aggregate up to the higher level one, and vice versa. All
> I'm saying is that it's wrong to view as causation what is actually
> aggregation (bottom-up) or disaggregation (top-down), i.e. a shift in
> viewpoint. This is really very simple: if the movement of a
> particular grain is considered part of the tipping point phenomenon,
> it cannot also be considered either a cause or an effect of that
> phenomenon. If it is part of it, it is simultaneous with it, whereas
> effects always follow causes.
>
The movement of the grain, however, was affected by the prior and
simultaneous movements and positions of other grains, which in
turn, were effected by prior and concommitant movements and
positions of still others, involving the entire system, which does
possess a tipping point as an actual phenomena, not just a mere
point of view. The fact that the slope of the pile does not exceed a
certain angle is an exemplar of the tipping point phenomenon, and
whether or not the next grain rolls or sits is determined by it, that
is, by the entire system, and not by any particular grain.
>
> > > > > You can say that a cause is only really that for the
> > > > > durationless instant that it is, actually, causing -- but
> > > > > that's only about how we use the word "cause". It's an
> > > > > attempt to get away from the normal usage, whereby that same
> > > > > state of affairs has the word applied to it before the event,
> > > > > and the state of affairs that constitutes the effect is still
> > > > > called "the effect" after the event. You are trying to
> > > > > redefine causation to suit your own purposes, and that's an
> > > > > absolutely hopeless task, due to the usefulness of the normal
> > > > > concept and the uselessness of yours.
> > > > >
> > > > The definition which I put forward is the philosophical
> > > > definition of the term, as opposed to the commonplace one.
> > >
> > > Even philosophical definitions should be of *some* use, however
> > > abstract.
> > >
> > And it is. The concept of reciprocal interactions between entities
> > hews more
> > faithfully to the actual referent event than the idea of one
> > element being the cause and another element being the effect.
>
> You are considering entities as cause and effect. See below.
>
No, you cannot read. I clearly stated 'RECIPROCAL
INTERACTIONS"; these are BETWEEN entities, not entities
themselves.
>
> > > > Since entities
> > > > affect each other in their interrelations, and those effects
> > > > perdure past the instant of interrelation, both must be
> > > > considered as both causes and effects (of each other), or
> > > > neither can be.
> > >
> > > Your confusion is due to viewing (or trying to view) entities as
> > > causes and effects. Where one billiard ball is stationary and
> > > another rolls towards it and hits it, of course it silly to view
> > > one ball as the cause and the other as the effect. In fact, the
> > > *situation* in which one ball is sent rolling towards the other is
> > > the cause, and the situation in which they are both rolling away
> > > from each other (assuming no other interactions) is the effect of
> > > the collision. This is perfectly clear and simple, isn't it?
> > >
> > One could just as well say that one has stopped the rolling of the
> > first ball, while the second ball continues to roll, along with the
> > table and the rotating earth; your narrative only holds validity
> > once one has chosen one referential frame, and dismissed all the
> > others.
>
> That's true of any narrative. But my point is that the ordinary
> concept of causation is not invalidated by your scenario in which one
> ball is the cause and the other the effect, because that's not how
> ordinary causation works.
>
It the interactinal event, neither entity is the cause or the effect
exclusively; both are both cause and effect in reciprocal interaction.
>
> > > > > A decision is not caused by any neural
> > > > > event that is simultaneous with it, nor does it cause any
> > > > > simultaneous neural event. The tipping point phenomenon is
> > > > > neither caused by, nor causes, the activity of any one grain
> > > > > of sand, because it *is* many such activities, aggregated.
> > > > >
> > > > Not just as a sum of their parts, but including their
> > > > interrelations, and these involve the system as a whole. And a
> > > > decision can cause a spatiotemporally subsequent neural event.
> > >
> > > Actually, the neural event need only be temporally distinct. And
> > > the story is not complete unless we note that there's a
> > > transition, within that statement, between very different
> > > conceptual frameworks.
> > >
> > Different explanatory systems better represent each.
>
> Are you agreeing with me?
>
There is a change between explanatory levels, and it correctly
reflects its referent, or that which it purports to explain; the vertical
causality proceeding between those levels, both top-down or
bottom-up.
>
> > > The tipping point is, I now have to admit, a slightly better
> > > analogy than I'd previously considered it to be. Individual
> > > grains are affected by the collapse that's due to the critical
> > > angle having been reached in the same way that subsequent neural
> > > events are caused by a conscious decision, i.e. through diagonal
> > > causation, where both ordinary causation and conceptual framework
> > > translation are involved in the explanation.
> > >
> > Both top-down and bottom-up causation are involved in the matter of
> > the interrelation between conscious decisions and subsequent neural
> > events.
>
> Please explain exactly how top-down causation is better than diagonal
> causation in such explanations.
>
Because you invoke linguistic magic in order to explain away the
empirically observable causal chains proceeding through real,
actual, concretely phenomenal events. One cannot employ
sophistry to explain away the real any more than one can define an
absent deity into existence. Your combination of causation and
levels of explanation crucially depends upon the simultaneity of the
conscious decision and the PET-scan neural event, when this
scenarion patently fails to adhere to the observed reality of the
situation.
>
> > > Perhaps you could just indicate whether you're now prepared to
> > > accept diagonal causation.
> > >
> > No. I'm willing to accept that decisions affect subsequent
> > decisions horizontally, and that neural events effect subsequent
> > neural events horizontally, but add that decisions and neural events
> > effect each other vertically, and that this is not an artifact of
> > explanatory levels, but an actual physical phenomenon.
>
> Diagonal causation is not "an artifact of explanatory levels", any
> more than is any explanation of any sort of causation. It is ordinary
> causation where cause and effect are on different levels.
>
Causation where cause and effect are on different levels is known
as vertical causation, and it comes in two distinct varieties, top-
down and bottom-up, which are found together in the realtion of the
emergent self to its material substrate brain. Explanations attempt
to be ABOUT the phenomena they purport to represent, and
CANNOT either substitute themselves for their referents or exercise
causal control over them. You have been bemused into making a
fundamental category mistake.
>
> > Let's put it
> > this way; your mental decision to type causes your body to do so,
> > and the aferent-efferent pathways subtending that action are
> > stimulated by that subsequent action, just as your mental decision
> > to read a text causes you to read it, and the pathways subtending
> > that reading are activated by your active choice of a particular
> > mode of perception. It only seems more problematical because we can
> > see the fingers typing and the person reading, but require the
> > PET-scan to detect the neural activity in each case. Juat because
> > we do not possess complete knowledge of the mechanisms involved, in
> > both decisions that subsequently affect neural pathways and their
> > effects upon actions (remembering that perceptions and actions are
> > praxically interpenetrated, and only isolable in abstraction), is
> > not a reason to deny what is apodictically self-evident; that these
> > things do indeed routinely happen, and the spatiotemporally prior
> > exert causal force, to some degree, upon the posterior, under the
> > commonly understood definition of causality.
>
> Do you *still* think I deny that decisions affect neural events?
>
> Consider this: time in this model is horizontal, so if the neural
> events are *subsequent* to the decision, that is not vertical
> causation. There is a vertical component (hierarchical organisation),
> but the fact that time is involved means that the vector is diagonal.
>
No, you equivocate here; horiziontal causation was supposed to be
'occurring on the same level' before, and now you have morphed it
into 'occuring during the passage of time'; vertical causation has
been denied by you, and now you label the nonexistent-to-you
entity as 'hierarchichal organization', apparently attempting to
causally subsume actual referent processes and events under
subsequent and derivatory 'explanatory levels. Get your errors
straight.
> --
> Robin Faichney
> Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org
> (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)
>
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