Pedro -- The Aristotelian causal categories are conceptual tools, providing
language for distinguishing aspects of a scene. Without them we are liable
to miss certain aspects of nature. For example, Francis Bacon eliminated
final cause from science discourse, explicitly stating that finality can
only apply to human needs. This eliminated much in nature -- in fact those
aspects not useful for the construction of machines. Note that
experimental science -- most of physics -- embodies formal and final causes
in the construction of an experimental setup, eliminating these categories
from the observation of what happens when an observed system is stimulated
by an efficient cause (to be noted only afterward in 'materials and
methods'). Thus, formal and final causes tend to become invisible. This
is valid in physics, or any experimental science which seeks to discover
the possibilities of observed systems, and not to explain actual phenomena
(which are mostly influenced by historically determined nonholonomic
constraints and context (formal causes).
The fact that 'what, how and where' may be transported along one route in a
natural system cannot eliminate them as conceptual tools.
STAN
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 4:32 PM, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ <
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> wrote:
> Dear FISers,
>
> Is it interesting the discussion on wether those informational entities
> contain realizations of the Aristotelian scheme of causality or not?
>
> The cell, in my view, conspicuously fails --it would be too artifactual an
> scheme. Some parts of the sensory paths of advanced nervous systems seem to
> separate some of those causes --but only in a few parts or patches of the
> concerned pathway. For instance, in visual processing the "what" and the
> "how/where" seem to be travelling together undifferentiated along the optic
> nerve and are separated --more or less-- after the visual superior
> colliculus in the midbrain before discharging onto the visual cortex. The
> really big flow of spikes arriving each instant (many millions every few
> milisec) are mixed and correlated with themselves and with other top-down
> and bottom-up preexisting flows in multiple neural mappings... and further,
> when those flows mix with the association areas under the influence of
> languaje, then, and only then, all those logic and conceptual
> categorizations of human thought are enacted in the ephemeral synaptic
> networks.
>
> I am optimistic that a new "Heraclitean" way of thinking boils down in
> network science, neuroinformatics, systems biology, bioinformation etc.
> Neither the "Parmenidean" eliminative fixism of classical reductionists,
> nor the Aristotelian organicism of systemicists. Say that this is a
> caricature. However "you cannot bathe twice in the same river" not just
> because we all are caught into the universal physical flow of photons and
> forces, but for the "Heraclitean flux" of our own neurons and brains, for
> the inner torrents of the aggregated information flows. The same for
> whatever cells, societies, etc. and their physical structures for info
> transportation.
>
> Either we produce an interesting new vision of the world, finally making
> sense of those perennial metaphors among the different (informational)
> realms, or information science will continue to be that small portion of
> incoherent patches more or less close to information theory or to
> artificial intelligence. In spite of decades of bla-bla- about information
> revolution and information society and tons of ad hoc literature, the
> educated thought of our contemporary society continues to be deeply
> mechanistic!
>
> Why?
>
> best wishes
>
> ---Pedro
>
>
> >
> > -snip-
> >
> > I think it of some interest that I have
> > previously ( 2006 On
> > Aristotle’s conception of causality.
> > General Systems Bulletin 35:
> > 11.) proposed that the Aristotelian 'formal
> > cause' determines both
> > 'what happens' and 'how it happens', and that
> > the combination of
> > this with material cause ('what it happens
> > to') delivers 'where' it
> > happens.
> >
> > (For completeness sake I add that efficient
> > cause determines only
> > 'when it happens', while final cause points
> > to 'why it happens'. It
> > would be quite exciting to find that these
> > informations were also
> > carried on separate tracts.)
> >
> >
> > It would be exciting, as that would seem to refute the
> > Aristotelean idea
> > of the four causes as four aspects of all causation. However an
> > information channel can carry some part of the information from
> > its
> > source, which would be a sort of filter or abstraction of the
> > source.
> > So, for example, a channel might be sensitive only to the "how",
> > but not
> > the "what", and vice versa. A channel is fundamentally a mapping
> > of
> > classes from a source to a sink that through instances that
> > retain the
> > mapping (see Barwsie and Seligman, Information Flow: The Logic
> > of
> > Distributed Systems). So in this case, a channel sensitive to,
> > say,
> > "what", would retain the what classifications of the source in a
> > way
> > that the sink could use, but perhaps not any other information.
> > The
> > channels themselves could still maintain all four aspects of
> > Aristotelean causation, so Aristotle need not be refuted. This
> > would
> > still be very interesting, though. I am unclear what functional
> > advantage there would be, though we certainly manage to separate
> > these
> > causes in much of our thinking (perhaps even, we can't help it).
> >
> > Cheers,
> > John
> >
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