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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2018 - 08:53am PT
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"when one uses language in changing perspective, it is imperative to delineate the boundaries of validity of that language. failing to do so is dishonest. the use of words such as "cause," "causal" and "causality" in this discussion requires one to provide their definitions."
So to pick on chemistry: chemistry (a category) is just one level, so to speak, removed from physics (a different category). In this category (of chemistry), use of "cause" and/or "causation" is (a) ubiquitous; (b) useful; (c) valid; (d) all the above.
In lieu of "cause", one could use "lead to" or "produce" or "form" or probably several other English words also.
Anyone disagree with the claim: In chemistry, use of the word "cause" and "causation" are perfectly acceptable. As chemistry vernacular. As chemistry (category) vernacular (means of expression, language).
Also, ecology, a branch of biology, can also be rendered/understood as a category with its own interactions (interactional dynamics), say between a cheetah and a gazelle; and as a category with its own language (e.g. prey, predation, commensalism, population, death, winner, loser, etc).
Anyone disagree?
Here's a claim/observation/description: (1) A fall off the river bank caused the gazelle to get hurt; it also caused it to get stuck in the mud. (2) As a result the gazelle's can-do power (agency) as a system in the environment (else an agent in the multiplayer arena) was diminished. (3) In the end, this condition led to its demise, its "death", in its interaction with a lion.
As one "bumps" category to category to category (field to field to field) the category items change, the conceptualization changes, the language changes.
Ultimately there's a purpose here. For example: "Free will". In one category it does NOT exist. In a different category, it does exist. Category matters. And all that comes with that category (e.g. terms or terminology) matter. This subject is key - the secret!! - to resolving these issues in a public setting (e.g., in a "mixed company" of physicists, engineers, biologists, theologians, rock climbers).
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 09:11am PT
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I think you missed my point way up-therad now.
When we perform a chemistry experiment in the lab we do it with intention and as an act of human agency. In that context we use "cause" appropriately, we caused a result based on a number of chemical reaction steps.
However, when we refer to this same thing happening out in the universe without the aid of human agency, the use of "cause" is inappropriate, unless you would invoke some form of "intent" being involved that "caused" those reactions to occur.
Our laboratory experiment might reveal what the necessary conditions are for a particular chemical reaction to occur, and the investigation of those conditions and processes are a part of our human "intent" to understand. But while we might observe, say, the chemical equilibrium of planetary atmospheres through spectroscopy as observers, we cannot claim a "cause" for what is observed, we can talk about the conditions under which such results might arise.
This is my response to don Largo's complaint about "Type A Physicalists" who are chained to the idea of a linear causal relationship. He has conflated what we do as humans to what the universe does, but the mistake he makes is an ancient one written into Genesis.
What we do in the laboratory is most certainly "causal" if we are good experimentalists.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2018 - 09:15am PT
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"I think you missed my point way up-thread now."
Okay, thanks. I'm out for a short time. When I get back I'll give it a full look. Due diligence matters. lol
For some reason, I still can't believe that was Kip Thorne!!
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 14, 2018 - 09:16am PT
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Randisi: . . . you have claimed many times that nothing matters.
You grabbed onto one part of what I said. You got half of it. The other half is that everything is divine. The “nothing matters” is the letting-go part. The “everything is divine” is the jumping-into-the-Lila-with-abandon part. Together, they both seem to constitute spontaneity.
Ed: . . . yes, the over riding sense is some sort of intention, . . . . Once again, philosophical notions are mixed with physical notions . . . .
Ok. There is a term / concept of *telos,* which generally means aim, end, or fulfillment. A telos is opposite of how we generally think of causes today. Causality asks, “who or what started it?” It imagines events pushed from behind by the past. Teleology asks, “What’s the point? What’s the purpose?” It conceives events aimed toward a goal. One could say that teleology gives a logic to reality / life. It can provide an account of long-range purposes. Telos gives value and does indeed expose intention.
(There is an associated idea called fatalism: everything is in the hands of the Gods. There is also finalism, which seems to mean that things have hidden purposes; and there is heroism, where one integrates the shadows of consciousness or slays them. We should also talk about “accident” and “necessity” {Plato?}, but that won’t make things clearer.)
I would also like to challenge your notion about words (technical or not) having specific, almost incontrovertible (literal), meanings by pointing you to a line of thinking by Saussure, Pierce, Barthes, and Derrida, but I’ll have to get my thoughts together for a post.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 14, 2018 - 10:12am PT
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We don’t talk about this stuff outside this thread really.
So far as I can tell, this thread has no existence outside of this thread.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 14, 2018 - 10:54am PT
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Is it possible for a thread to be "conscious", perhaps in the hive sense? If so, does it reside in the same category as human consciousness, or rather ant consciousness?
Is this thread a sort of "mind" itself as "thoughts" jump from one to another, from different parts of the thread's "brain"?
Does this thread have a subconscious realm?
Does this thread "sleep" to recover from its efforts?
Does this thread have "can-do" potential?
Do the politard threads have can-do potential?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 14, 2018 - 03:09pm PT
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Uh oh.
Jgill has started inventing koans.
Meanwhile he himself has provided the subconscious of this thread with his mathematical artwork.
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nafod
Boulder climber
State college
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Jul 14, 2018 - 05:10pm PT
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Is it possible for a thread to be "conscious", perhaps in the hive sense? If so, does it reside in the same category as human consciousness, or rather ant consciousness?
Is this thread a sort of "mind" itself as "thoughts" jump from one to another, from different parts of the thread's "brain"? Interesting question, as to how much of an argument one can actually have with oneself. Or more basically, who are you talking to when you have a conversation with yourself? Why do you even use words to communicate ideas within your head?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 05:36pm PT
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I would also like to challenge your notion about words (technical or not) having specific, almost incontrovertible (literal)...
I think you have totally misunderstood me, why would I ask someone to define what they mean when they use a word like "cause," "causal," "causality" if their meanings were "specific, almost incontrovertible (literal)"?
don Largo would like to make an argument that "mind" cannot be understood by "Type A Physicalists" because they think along "linear causal chains." If this is more than some whiney complaint then he has something in mind and he communicated it with words. He has been writing for decades, his choice of words cannot be written off as a frivolity.
It is entirely possible that he uses some words very differently than those physicalists he is criticizing.
The modern view of physical causality is more a condition that comes from Special Relativity, that is, if some reaction requires antecedent conditions, those conditions must occur in the "past light cone" of the reaction.
The idea of "light cone" is relatively simple, at each point of space time, the "light cone" is the volume of space enclosed by a notional sphere whose radius is increasing at the speed of light out from that point.
That point is "now, here", the light cone going out with "positive time" is the "future light cone" and the one going out in "negative time" is the "past light cone."
Only things happening in the past light cone can affect the "here, now" and something happening "here, now" can only affect those things in the future light cone.
That is the modern notion of "causality" that physicists hew to, it does not invoke what don Largo has claimed it invokes, and whatever the brain does as a physical system, it is subject to the constraint (which is not a very stringent one when talking about something like a brain over its size and the timescale which it does its thing).
"teleological" descriptions of physical systems exist, are in common use, and are equivalent to the "local" descriptions. Fermat's principle of least time is an example of a "teleological" description. Given a source location in a transparent material with one index of refraction, and a detection position in another material which boarders the first, but having a different index of refraction, one can calculate what the path of the light will be by requiring the time of transit to be the minimum possible.
Feynman developed a "path integral" description of quantum mechanics, using a similar principle of minimum action (adopted from classical mechanics) which gives all the same answers as the "regular" quantum mechanics.
Why is this "teleological"? we define the starting and ending points and some path between the two, we've defined the system, now we have only to calculate the path the system takes. This is not the same idea as as "step-by-step" description of the system moving from point A to point B. But both descriptions result in the same answer. They are equivalent.
Here we might intend the use of "teleological" differently, but I tried to use it as a counter example to don Largo's insistence that "Type A Physicalists" are incapable of such thoughts.
The criticism of my ability to communicate is probably apt, I couldn't come up with some snappy reply to Largo's oh to cool for school vernacular style (Largo often pokes fun of some of my stuffy prose). However, the entire idea of the movie Arrival (Ted Chiang "Stories of Your Life") is an exploration of pushing a way of thinking with language into making the universe a particular way (skating out onto the thin ice of Whorfianism).
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2018 - 06:21pm PT
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Okay Ed, I think I get your points about the usage of “cause” and “causality” but just to help clarify, let’s see. Here’s a scenario for your consideration.
It is not a lab setting, but it is real-world - ancient history, just one billion years after our solar system’s formation, no minds and moreover no life present on earth. Not yet. The location is Earth’s surface close to the equator, let’s say. Now here at this location there is a particular interaction between a methane molecule, CH4, and a chlorine radical, Cl. This interaction, else collision, between these molecules produces a methyl radical, CH3, and a hydrogen chloride molecule, HCl, as an intermediate state before reaching some further condition. So that’s the scenario. That’s what happened in the scenario at some instance long long ago.
The claim: You are not amenable to saying that this two-molecule collision caused this methyl radical formation.
A reason being, if not THE reason being, is that, insofar as we are strictly speaking, it is wrong to say this collision caused this methyl radical formation because no mind nor intention or purpose was present to either describe or explain the process (as in a statement) or else direct it (as in a lab).
Is this your position? Do I have your position correct?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 06:30pm PT
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what are all the possible outcomes of the collision?
what about all the other reactions going on?
what heats the stuff up so it collides?
why is that particular mix of molecules and atoms there in the first place?
does it make sense to talk about "causes"? or is this just what a thermal distribution of atoms and molecules does, react...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2018 - 06:40pm PT
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I don't understand. I gave the setting with conditions. I tried to make it simple hoping we could come to an agreement.
I just don't understand all these followup questions.
Take our two molecules to deep space if you like. A virtual vaccuum. Does that help us any.
The conditions: Deep space. The two methyl and chlorine molecules are the only molecules present in a cubic meter, let's say as a given. No outside forces of any significance to speak of outside this system, again let's say as a given. These two molecules just happen to collide leading to the two reactants (edit: products) above.
In this highly specific, highly confined setting, which we should both be able to imagine, I think, happening 6 billion years ago, again no minds or intentions or purposes involved... Does this collision, this interaction, cause a methyl radical to form as a result?
Does that help us any? I'm simply trying to get a better handle on your conception of "cause" or "causation" relative to intention or purpose or even mind or life itself - the latter being factors you have said usher in, or else legitimate, the words "cause" or "causation".
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 06:49pm PT
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if YOU setup the conditions that could (doesn't have to, there are other reactions that could occur, like simple elastic scattering) then YOU caused the reaction to happen
you did an experiment.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 14, 2018 - 06:52pm PT
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Rest assured, this inquiry is not a set-up of any kind (if that's at all crossed your mind), I'm simply trying to get a better grasp of how you are and how you are not conceiving/defining "cause" or "causation" by attempting to use a thought experiment with which we are both extremely familiar.
...
you did an experiment.
So we are not even able to imagine a case 6 billion years ago unfolding as above? Even such an imagining, a thought experiment, a conception (of what did in actuality probably happen in some degree or kind 6 billion ya), you are calling an experiment?
It just seems to me there's a huge difference (that we could actually talk about meaningfully re "cause") between (a) imagining TWO molecules colliding 5 billion years ago in deep empty space to yield products and (b) the design and development, say, of a vaccine or a car or a robot (in which purpose or intention or goals/objectives are implicitly folded into the construction).
Take our two molecules to deep space if you like. -hfcs
Of course I didn't mean literally (if you took it that way); I meant imaginatively - reflecting some actual occurrence that happened that long ago (that we're simply imagining here and now).
...
So the funny thing is, back around 6 pm, I really thought I had your conception and definition of "cause" figured out - and moreover, moreover, I was amenable to using it, proceding with it, in such mindless, purposeless, agentless, scenarios (or category or frame) as above. Hm.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 09:39pm PT
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It is a way of thinking about things...
...but it is not necessary to think about things in that way.
The same situation can be described without ascribing "causes," there is no scientific principle or law which requires such a thing.
A thought experiment is an experiment, albeit hypothetical, but in the thought experiment YOU set all the conditions with intention.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 10:35pm PT
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Randisi, as you probably well know, there is a brief model in Zen that says:...
I thought it was Donovan
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 14, 2018 - 10:40pm PT
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The cause is in the laws and limitations of all actions in the universe.
how is that a cause?
we don't now all the "laws and limitations of all actions," so it seem premature to make the presumption, and not only that, there is a huge body of science for which causation is problematic, take quantum mechanics for instance.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 15, 2018 - 06:02am PT
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Every endeavor that attempts to resolve an issue can also cause one.
It’s better to gain knowledge through understanding why something is wrong and fix it, than to accept it as a status quo of some kind of supernatural justice.
LOL .... You haven't gained any knowledge yet nor fixed anything yet.
You're chained to the five main defects of the gross materialists.
You MUST make mistakes, You must have birth, You Must have death, YOU MUST have disease, YOU MUST have old age.
All your modern material science is permanently useless against these .......
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