Krimel said to dmb: I think the point you are missing here is that it is not so much chains of causality as webs of causality. Because causal chains are interconnected they influence each other. And it is not a three dimensional nest it is at least four dimensional. Frankly, I agree that Pirsig does, "...re-conception of physical laws as extremely persistent patterns of preference and his re-conception of natural selection as the accumulated effect of countless spur of the moment choices." ...Determinism is not lost in any of this. It is just that determinism does not produce prediction as was once thought. Chaotic behavior is perfectly deterministic even reductionistic with no loss of freedom. ...I don't see much difference in what we are both saying here, which is very odd to me.
[dmb] The disagreement here is not really related to whether or not we're talking about three-dimensional chains or four-dimensional webs but causality itself. Long story short, we both subscribe to the general notion that everything exists in relation to everything else and everything happens within that context. But I'm saying that these relations are not causal. They're volitional. [Krimel] First of all volition is a cause, so relations can not be both "volitional" and "not causal". [dmb] This is why I mentioned the conversion from physical laws to patterns of preference. Here, Pirsig describes the very same event, the very same data if you will, without any reference to causality. [Krimel] All Pirsig has done is rename "causality". When he substitutes the word "preference" all he has done is swap the line of causality for a bell curve of preference. Adding waves to lines will turn a sock inside out. There is no topological shift here. [dmb] So, you see, there is a huge difference. Our ideas about causality, that is to say common sense ideas among educated adults, extend to the edge of the universe and back to the big bang. So, in a sense we're talking about two difference universes, w whole different way of seeing everything. That's why the sock analogy works so well. We still exist in relation to the sock, but oh what a difference that relation is. [Krimel] I would say the moon that Pirsig point toward here is the probablization of physics. Where what we have is not fixed outcomes but ranges of probability. I see causality in Jungian terms. Jung called it synchronicity or "meaningful coincidence." He did not associate synchronicity with causality. In fact I believe he thought of synchronicity as acausal. But I think "causality" is a special case of synchronicity where the probability of "coincidence" among events approaches 100%. The closer the relationship is to 100%, the more meaningful it becomes. Calling causality, "preference" allows us to speak about measures of central tendency, mean, medium, standard deviation but the implication of agency does not follow. I think Pirsig was shooting for something like Dennett's intentional stance. Unfortunately, what you are leaving out is that we take this stance metaphorically and pragmatically. We know computers can't think but they "sort of" do. I would agree that some things do appear to be "sort of" volitional. If you ignore the "sort of" you are not escaping from a sock. You are just pulling more wool over your own eyes. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
