#JuarreroBook Chapter 6 Part 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.