Evolving Thoughts

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  2. Hardly fair on the canny Scot. He denied that cause and effect were logically necessary, not that there wasn’t such a thing. Isn’t that why Kant invented the synthetic a priori to pick up cause and effect and put it back on its necessary perch?

      1. You’re just pissing on me and telling me it’s raining right now…..Heidegger, wasn’t he an euphonic part of a Monty Python ditty?

        I guess I read into Hume what I read into Hume. I think it’s a necessary truth that I couldn’t provide you with a good argument of my (probably false) viewpoint of Hume’s take on causality. I’ll just that causality seems to be a macroscopic phenomenon based on constant correlation. Coincidently, the macroscopic world is the playground in which we fallible beings evolved. Is it possible that we evolved to fit this contingent circumstance? Microscopically I’ve been told it’s a free-for-all (Quantum Vacuum fluctuations, etc) causation is gone…

  3. John, how does this square with Noether’s theorem?

    Dowe’s version (1995, p. 323):

    CQ1. A causal interaction is an intersection of world lines which involves exchange of a conserved quantity.

    CQ2. A causal process is a world line of an object which possesses a conserved quantity.

    Salmon’s version (1997, pp. 462, 468):

    Definition 1. A causal interaction is an intersection of world-lines that involves exchange of a conserved quantity.

    Definition 2. A causal process is a world-line of an object that transmits a nonzero amount of a conserved quantity at each moment of its history (each spacetime point of its trajectory).

    Definition 3. A process transmits a conserved quantity between A and B (A ? B) if it possesses [a fixed amount of] this quantity at A and at B and at every stage of the process between A and B without any interactions in the open interval (A, B) that involve an exchange of that particular conserved quantity.

    Doesn’t that make causation entirely subjective? After all, as I (probably ignorantly) understand it, Noether’s theorem tells us that conserved quantities exist because of point-of-view invariance. That is, because we measure them so.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem

    1. No idea. I exhausted my knowledge of this topic by spelling Salmon’s name right. You need a philosopher of mathematics or physics.

      But, in my ignorance, I suppose that a point-of-view merely means there is a way to describe a system, not that it is described or that the description is subjective. These words mean something different in biology, and it hurts my head.

      1. Yeah, but who describes the system? Who is above the humans who choose to describe the system from a human point of view? If it’s just humans trying to describe the system so measurements make sense from all possible (as far as humans can tell) points of view, then it’s invariant. You could call it inter-subjective. But I’m just not seeing how it would bother Hume greatly. Still seems like, to misquote John Pieret, we’re just pushing back the infinite regress, one step at a time. I don’t think that pointing to conserved qualities is doing more than pointing to how we choose to do science….

      2. Yeah, why a philosopher of mathematics or physics? You just had a post that for every philosopher with a positive view, there is one with a negative. Let’s get positive(-ist) and ignore the negatives. 🙂

        Who describes the system? Who is above the humans who choose to describe the system from a human point of view? If it’s just humans trying to describe the system so measurements make sense from all possible (as far as humans can tell) points of view, then it’s invariant (to humans). You could call it inter-subjective. But I’m just not seeing how it would bother Hume greatly. Still seems like, to misquote John Pieret, we’re just pushing back the infinite regress, one step at a time. I don’t think that pointing to conserved quantities is doing more than pointing to how we choose to do science….

        Caveats: 1) I’m arguing from intuitive understanding, not rigorous mathematical understanding. I figure you know this by now, but I point it out. 2) Hume’s probably doing a sharp turn in his grave in disgust given the way I’ve abused his thinking. 3) I like Hume, any fat guy (like me) who can go to Paris and be a hit with les femmes is OK by me!

        1. Oh, you’ll find philosophers of physics and math to fit every taste and occasion. It’s just that I’ve had enough of having my arse handed to me by the matheliterate.

          The things about objective representations is that they, strictly speaking, contradict themselves for just the reason you give: there’s no God’s eye view (I think this is called perspectivalism, but don’t quote me). But if there is an objective description, then it describes conserved quantities. However, quantities are conserved even if neither they, nor the worldlines they comprise, are described, I think. Or so it has been described to me…

      3. Apologies for the doubling. I clicked ‘reply’ and it started to edit the first post to your find reply. I didn’t realize I was adding another reply. Given that both are content free, please delete both or one with you find least favour.

  4. The proof of the pudding is in the eating….

    Wikipedia: “Perspectivism rejects objective metaphysics as impossible, and claims that there are no objective evaluations which transcend cultural formations or subjective designations. This means that there are no objective facts, and that there can be no knowledge of a thing in itself. This separates truth from a particular (or single) vantage point, and means that there are no ethical or epistemological absolutes. This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives. “Truth” is thus formalized as a whole that is created by integrating different vantage points together.” [my emphasis]

    I differ with that definition of perspectivism only slightly: I’m agnostic about the possibility of perfect knowledge. A given point of view might (coincidentally) be perfectly objective even if no one could prove it with certainty.

    Its one of my favorite philosophical perspectives none the less.

    Poor Richard

    Poor Richard’s Almanack 2010

      1. Yep. Stanford has 8 results for perspectivalism. It also has 10 for perspectivism. No two definitions are alike in either case. This suggests a corollary to your “For every philosopher, there is an infinite number of equal and opposite philosophers..”:

        For every philosophical term, there is an infinite number of alternate definitions.

        One of the results for perspectivism (Max Weber) characterized it pejoratively: “Such a practice, which Weber calls “syncretism,” is not only impossible but also unethical.”

        This is all too similar to arguments I’ve heard all my life against eclecticism.The holy mount must be defended from infidels!

        So which of these two perspectives which perspectivism and/or perspectivalism oblige(s) us to conflate (intentionally choosing a word philosophers use pejoratively) has more gravitas: purity or synthesis?

        And which has more vibrato?

        PR

        Poor Richard’s Almanack 2010

  5. There is a term used by ecologists, which I cannot remember, for events where there is correlation, but not causation. the example I remember is the falling of leaves in the fall and the drop in temperature. Neither causes the other, but both are responses to shortened day length.

  6. I’m sure that if I got shot every time it went dark, without exception, I would start to think that the darkness was a cause … so I don’t see how this cartoon attacks the ‘constant’ correlation notion [as you have pointed out, Brian].

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