#JuarreroBook Chapter 6 Part 2
-
interesting, need to ponder...
-
@UlrikeHahn
OK, I came up with another idea for a model!
It starts from the rules for GoL (i.e., at the level of cells + direct neighbours), but now there is at least one additional rule for certain larger configurations. Say, a certain static configuration with empty cells around it (such that under regular GoL rules they could not change in the next step) *will* now be changed in a particular way.
Next, imagine applying this also (or only?) at macro-scale GoL emulated in micro-GoL. -
@UlrikeHahn This addition would render the base rules 'ceteris paribus', but the overall rules are still deterministic.
I think the 'exception rules' might also apply to non-static patterns, but more care might be needed to phrase them such that the overall rules remain determinate, and if they would apply to, say, gliders, it could easily kill the complexity of GoL.
@dcm -
@SylviaFysica @UlrikeHahn Sorry for disappearing, I spent the weekend in the fun and relaxing not at all stressful activity of moving flats.
I made some drawings to understand things better. 'P' stands for the phenomenon/pattern of interest, 'C' stands for the parts and interactions that constitute P. Lines stand for constitution relations, arrows for causal relations.
Case 1) is the familiar picture, no mereological causation, no strong emergence. While 2) or even 3) is what J. needs to show.
-
@SylviaFysica @UlrikeHahn in 1) there is no metaphysical causal overdetermination if P is identical to C and P' is identical to C'. In any case, interventionist causality works for both levels.
2) and 3) seem to be putative cases of mereological causation, in which the whole has causal powers over and above their parts and interactions. This is the kind of case we don't seem to find, and J. wants to argue for. Right? (Focusing only on the metaphysics here, not epistemology). -
@dcm
No, that does not sound stressful at all...The sketches are helpful. Although I'm not reading J's book (sorry), this is indeed the kind of picture I had in mind. (I'm using Ismael's How physics makes us free as a proxy. But was also thinking of possible infinite hierarchy, like in List&Pivato.)
My earlier remark was case 1): consistent GoL rules on both levels.
New idea is close to case 2): there could be 'default' rules at the C level, with exceptions caused by certain P.
@UlrikeHahn -
@SylviaFysica @UlrikeHahn But how could the exception in P not be something constituted by or identical with something going on in C?
(The drawings are supposed to be token P-token C depictions, not types) -
@dcm I was thinking in terms of cellular automata: the usual rules (~causal process) at C-level is blind to anything outside the nearest neighbours; it only takes 9 binary inputs (of cell itself + 8 others). [This is just case 1).]
In the modified form, candidate for case 2), the rule at level C has an additional input: not fine-grained input (not state of all the other cells), but only coarse-grained input whether or not a certain pattern P obtains, which then invokes a new rule.
@UlrikeHahn -
@dcm
Of course, whether or not that pattern P obtains still supervenes on C, but I think this setup blocks the view that the causation is purely at C-level?
But now I'm not sure anymore how the new rule could direct the C-cells what to do. So, perhaps it doesn't work after all. (A bit too tired to figure it out now.)
@UlrikeHahn -
@SylviaFysica @dcm Dimitri, isn’t the point that the rule attaches to a p property (genuinely), so even if p’s are identical to a combination of c’s, the rule is genuinely about p (ie the whole) and, unlike the original rules can’t be expressed in (purely) local terms?
-
@UlrikeHahn @SylviaFysica Yes, but that makes the point (mostly) epistemological, just regularities and explanations that apply to the P level rather than the C level (which is the normal case for every non-fundamental science).
Metaphysically there would still be no 'mereological causation': P does not cause C, and changes in P (including through a coarse rule) involve changes in C. In other words, it would still be case 1) in my illustrations, not 2) or 3).
-
@dcm @SylviaFysica not sure I agree that it’s just epistemological. There is a real sense in which the rule is about p not c.
I agree that it’s not really about causation, though (see also my examples). But it is the case that the changes in c came about through something that attached to p
-
@UlrikeHahn @SylviaFysica the regularities apply to P, but each token P is constituted/realised by a C, so nothing weird happening metaphysically. The regularity is not about C (also because it probably applies across C1, C2, etc), but it is nothing metaphysically over and above (let alone causing) those Cs that realise/constitute the various tokens of P.
There is a largely non-controversial metaphysical side in saying that P and C both exist, but as you say, J. wants something much stronger.
-
@UlrikeHahn @SylviaFysica these, including my drawings, draw a lot from Fodor's Special Sciences paper from the 70s, in which he argues for similar points.
-
you're the expert, not me, but I still feel like we are each focussing on slightly different things. I think Sylvia's rule isn't just a 'regularity': 'gliders tend to break apart on impact with blinkers' would be a GoL regularity, but while the latter is a high level redescription of the behaviour of a system ultimately driven by the states of individual squares and a set of local interaction rules, Sylvia's system is not.
1/2
-
2/2
The the p pattern seems 'more real' to me in Sylvia's version than in the standard GoL as well. That is driven (for me) by the difference in status of the rules governing the system and what they attach to (just c's or also to p's). And J's metaphysical points seem (to me) to be not just about 'objects' (p or c) but also about the status of the rules (interactions, constraints etc.).But I don;t know enough about metaphysics to know if that makes sense.
-
@UlrikeHahn @SylviaFysica I don't count as an expert on metaphysics either (always disliked it). I've only cared about the bits that are relevant to phil of science.
In the case of Sylvia's version, the rule would come from some other system interacting with P, isn't it? But changing P is changing C too, in one go.
Yes, J. cares about the status of constraints, but I think we mostly agreed that it is fine to take them as real (and not very controversial). Mereological causation is the problem. -
my understanding was that Sylvia's new rule is an additional GoL rule?
and the difference is between a rule changing c by virtue of being c and a rule changing c by virtue of being part of p
terminological confusion caused by the word 'cause' itself aside, I thought the point of mereological causation or downward causation was exactly that?
-
@UlrikeHahn @dcm Right! To avoid confusion, I wrote down the schema I had in mind. In the original rules, the state of a cell can be computed locally (based on its state in previous step + summary statistic of its nearest neighbours).
In the modification, the state of each cell is also influenced by a summary statistic that tracks whether the cell is part of some pattern that exceeds its local neighbourhood (in the simplest case, just a binary number: just presence or absence of this pattern). -
@SylviaFysica @UlrikeHahn That's a very nice way of putting it, Ulrike! I would think that if that's what J. is trying to show then it's not controversial, at least within mainstream phil of science. Any non-fundamental rule, law, regularity, would count, right?
My reading was that she wants something stronger than that, something like strong emergence that makes causation go from top to bottom, rather than acting on both levels in one go.