#JuarreroBook Chapter 6 Part 2
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@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?
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@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).
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@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
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@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.
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@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.
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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
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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.
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@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?
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@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. -
@SylviaFysica @UlrikeHahn I think part of my scepticism regarding this case is that GoL does not really involve causal interactions between cells. The computational rules are doing all the work.
If we take it to be simulating something causal through the computational rules, then the new rule would have to be something that acts on the cells, making them change in the appropriate ways. It would also involve some 'sensory' mechanism causally sensitive to the patterns for the summary statistics.
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@dcm @SylviaFysica I’m not sure what’s mainstream ;-), but, to me, not “any non-fundamental rule or regularity” counts: There’s still a metaphysical distinction between GoL and Sylvia’s GoL. In GoL, high-level regularities (‘Gliders break up when hitting blinkers’) are interesting/useful, but, in a sense, epiphenomenal and different in kind to the fundamental interaction rules. In Sylvia’s GoL there are equally ‘real’ system behaviour determining rules at both levels 1/2
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@dcm @SylviaFysica I think what you have just said is key, and is a key part of the confusion in this area. We can (like J does) strip the word ‘causal’ out of things and just talk about the level at which system governing rules operate. Then I think the contrast GoL SylviaGoL gets at the right thing BUT, the difficulty is imagining efficacious rules that are actually possible (given a system that is deterministic at the fundamental level). 1/2
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@dcm @SylviaFysica 2/2 it’s for this reason that we struggle to find good examples - there has to be ‘space’ for a high level rule to operate that allows it to genuinely impact the state of the system.
I believe it’s more likely than not that that exists, and that J. might be offering useful conceptual tools, but it’s hard to find good cases….Could I now point you to my examples 2 and 3 for exactly those reasons
see over here: https://fediscience.org/@UlrikeHahn/112400243761150183
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@dcm @SylviaFysica just to hold on to where we got to, the crucial issue (to me) is the difference ibetween a rule changing c by virtue of being c and a rule changing c by virtue of being part of p, and whether, and in what sense, non-reductive, genuinely efficacious examples of the latter exist: rules etc. operating on wholes that are on a par with fundamental level rules
That’s what I think J is after and that’s what I personally am looking for…
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@UlrikeHahn @SylviaFysica As I mentioned, I'm not sure J. is after that claim. Just so that I understand better what you mean: take this regularity: 'if you launch a rock against a window, the glass will break'. Rocks and windows are, arguably, wholes, and the regularity is about them. But breaking windows involves lots of atomic events too. Would this be a case of changing C (arrangement of glass molecules) by virtue of P (rules about rocks and windows) in your way of putting it?
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@dcm @SylviaFysica
@dcm @SylviaFysicaI think what's at issue is *whether* the rock/window example is about changing c by virtue of p or whether it is perfectly well understood as flowing from c to c....
I have no definitive view on this either way, and the example is (already) too complicated for me ...
& yes, I should be clear that what I'm setting out is ultimately what interests me. I *think* it's what the book is about, but, as discussed, the exposition is not super clear to me either.