Nick, They are not beyond your ability to understand. I am happy to explain as much as you like.
Frank Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-9918 On Nov 22, 2017 10:10 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Frank, > > > > Please forgive me for not being adequately responsive. I have looked at > some of the sources you have mentioned and they are beyond my ability to > understand. So, I am dependent on you (or others) to explain to me how > those models work. Now, I realize that this perhaps brings us to the > threshold of our old argument about whether mathematics needs explanation … > it just is, You like it or you don’t. Sounds like a good discussion to > have on Friday > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Frank > Wimberly > *Sent:* Wednesday, November 22, 2017 9:55 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation > > > > Nick, > > > > Whenever I say this it doesn't seem to register. Pearl, Glymour, Spirtes, > et al have put statistical causal reasoning on a firm foundation. This > involves learning causal models from observational rather that experimental > data, including data from the past. Also remember the distinction between > "actual" causation (hitting this jar with a hammer causes it to break) and > statistical causation (smoking causes cancer). > > > > There is an extensive and growing literature on these topics. > > > > Frank > > > > > > Frank Wimberly > Phone (505) 670-9918 > > > > On Nov 22, 2017 9:43 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi, Eric, > > > > Well, I would like to say that my personal version of the Pragmatic Maxim: > > > > *Consider what possible experimental effects the invocation of your > conception has; those effects are the entire meaning of your conception.* > > > > … means that the causality makes reference to experiments or to nothing > whatsoever. The problem is, of course, that strictly speaking that means > we cannot apply causality to past events, including evolutionary ones. > That would seem to be overkill. There is, of course, the comparative > method and, of course, “thought experiments.” Nothing in the maxim, I > suppose, requires me to actually perform the experiment; only to > conceptualize it. Seems like mushy ground. > > > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Carl > Tollander > *Sent:* Wednesday, November 22, 2017 7:10 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation > > > > One of the recurring conundrums of teaching. Finger pointing at the > moon.... > > > > > > On Nov 22, 2017 14:32, "Eric Charles" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > "Is there any way to put those two things together: the abduction thing > and the misattribution thing? " > > > I would head in a different direction. The question is about, how one does > the attribution; the answer is, most people do it poorly. In a large part, > the history of scientific *method *is a history of determining the > conditions under which we allow causal attributions. When I used to teach, > I illustrated this most directly in my intro-to-behaviorism class. > > > > That class included a lot of discussion of applied behavior analysis > (altering the environment of a person in an effort to improve their > behavioral functioning within that environment). The central challenge is > that the ABA practitioner typically only has access to the (usually a) > child for a very limited time, and you don't want to jump to the conclusion > that your efforts are working when external factors might equally explain > the change in the child's behavior. We work up from very basic methods of > increasing confidence. We eventually build up to an ABAB design, in which > the prospective solution is applied, then removed, then applied, then > removed. Every time the problem behavior goes away, comes back, goes away, > and comes back, etc., our confidence increases that our intervention is > *causing > *the improvement in behavior, because it is increasingly unlikely that > some other factor just so happens to be varying at exactly the same times. > > > > Part of the process of "becoming" "a scientist" is increasingly the > sophistication of research needed before you draw such conclusions... or, > perhaps more accurately, how well you match the tentativeness-vs-solidity > of your beliefs to the type of empirical evidence in favor of them. > Eventually one is drawing on a wealth of difficult-to-specify > domain-specific knowledge in support of any conclusion, but likely > justifies the conclusion on the basis of the latest bit of crucial evidence > (the one which, for them, solidifies the pattern). > > > > Though... suddenly I might have a legitimate response to your inquiry: I > would hypothesize that people often mistakenly point at the bit of > information that was crucial to them, rather than the larger pattern that > the crucial bit of information brought into focus. > > > > With Murder on the Orient Express on my mind.... Hercule Poirot would > narrate such a thing explicitly, would he not? He would say "The crucial > clue in helping me unravel my confusion was X" and then he would explain > the larger pattern thus illuminated. A lesser detective would act as if the > clue itself were crucial in its own right - "This is the key!" - even if it > was a trivial thing on its own, thus committing a dramatic misattribution > by virtue of not being self-aware of the abduction taking place. > > > > Did that get anywhere? > > > > > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Supervisory Survey Statistician > > U.S. Marine Corps > > > > On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 1:07 AM, Nick Thompson <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi, Eric, > > > > Thank you, Eric. OF COURSE, that is what I should have said. Thank you > for saying it so excellently. Peirce did in fact see causal attribution as > a form of abduction. I would hope I would have thought to say it myself, > if I wasn’t so distracted by the “counter-factual” thang. But that way of > speaking makes me CRAAAAAY-ZEEE. How can something defined in terms of > something that didn’t happen > > > > Before you wrote, I was about to get on my “mystery” high horse. A > mystery, you remember, is a confusion arrived at when a bit of language is > applied to a situation where it doesn’t really work. Causal attributions > are often falsely singular, in the sense that , we often speak as if the > motion of a billiard ball was caused by the motion of the cue ball, say. > But what we really have to back those attributions up is a pattern of > relations between impacts of cue balls and motions of object balls. When > we step up to the next level of organization, the confusion disappears, > doesn’t it? Events of Type A are said to cause events of type B when > experiments with proper controls show that an increase in the occurrence of > type B events is dependent upon the previous occurrence of Type A events. > But to say that any particular Type A event causes a Type B event is an > abuse of language, a mystery. > > > > Is there any way to put those two things together: the abduction thing > and the misattribution thing? > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > *From:* Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Eric > Charles > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 21, 2017 6:43 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward Hicausation > > > > What great timing! One of the best philosophy comics on the web right now > is "Existential Comics." This very week they took a swipe at "causation." > Here is an adventure of Sherlock Hume: http://existentialcomics.com/ > comic/212 > > I suspect that the best I can do to contribute beyond that is to try fall > back on my role of scolding Nick. > > Nick *should *be asserting that "causation" is a metaphor. The billiard > ball are the understood scenario. Billiard balls sitting on a still table, > unmolested don't move. But if you knock one ball into another ball, the > other ball move so. When I say something like "The approaching lion *caused > *the gazelle to move", I am invoking the metaphor that the lion-gazelle > relationship is like that of the billiard balls. Had the lion not been > doing what it was doing, the gazelle would not have moved away. It isn't > simply a "counterfactual." It is an assertion (an *abduction*) regarding > broad patterns of gazelle behavior that can be readily observed under many > other situations.** Some of those, I have presumably already seen. Those > constitute the "basic implication" of the metaphor. Others I have not > observed, and those constitute potential investigatory events - not > ethereal thought experiments. As in true of any metaphor, there are also > aspects of the billiard-ball scenario I do not intend to map perfectly onto > the lion-gazelle scenario (e.g., the lion and gazelle are not spheres). > > So that is where Hume and those like him go wrong. They want to beat the > billiard balls scenario itself to death. But that's not how metaphors work. > There is something understood about the billiard balls, and it is > that-understood-thing that is being generalized to another scenario. Any > attempt to explain the billiard balls will involve evoking *different > *metaphors, > which would entail different assertions (abductions). There is no > foundation (Peirce tells us, amongst others), Descartes was on a fool's > errand: In the land of inference, it is turtles all the way down. > > > > ** The breadth of the patterns being referenced is, I believe, where > Frank's point about probability slips in. One could certainly simplify the > complexity of the assertion by making lumping similar scenarios together > and speaking about the probability of a certain gazelle behavior within the > cluster of similar situations. > > > > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Supervisory Survey Statistician > > U.S. Marine Corps > > > > On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 5:08 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > > Also Known As: Beware equating experience with existence. > > On 11/21/2017 02:00 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > Beware the tendency to think that if you can't immediately measure > something then it doesn't exist. > > > -- > ☣ gⅼеɳ > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
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