Craig, in a defining sense, explanation is always with hindsight (after the empirical experience, even though the hypothesis will preceed it if the experience is itself planned as a "test"). When we talk about prior explanation in everyday life we are concerned with it's predictive value, making decisions with some view of the likely outcome. (You already knew that.)
The pool example is the classic complexity & chaos example ... you know that the predictability (and reductive explanation) are practically worthless after a fairly small number of ball-to-ball and ball-to-cushion "events" ... which is why you chose it ? With a situation involving a small number of events, then the prior explanation has some useful predictive value in terms of the individual discrete events (or the sport wouldn't exist). With larger numbers of events, only prediction based on "patterns" of the starting disposition are likely to have any predictive value, and even then only ... statistically. As a pragmatist I'm not really interested in things that can be explained "only" afterwards. The drunk / paranoia example. I should have said "not very helpful" for their predictive value. Clearly in hindsight the simple objects and causes are "useful" short-hand, but that simple short-hand has limited value and many traps if used to propose courses of future action .... we'll need to work-up a scenario to discuss that as an example ? Dennett's example of the father who leaves his child to die in the back of his car mught work ? Back later. Ian On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 9:16 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > [ian] >> Many things that can be fully explained only in hindsight > > Take a game of pool or pocket billiards. > One can explain the 8-ball going in the side pocket by saying it bounced off > the side rail > or explain the 8-ball going in the corner pocket by saying it bounced off the > end rail. Both > explanations can be given before the event occurs, but the CORRECT > explanation of what > ACTUALLY occurs might not be KNOWN until afterwards. > Is this what you had in mind? Or do you think some events can be explained > either before > or after they happen, while other events can only be explained afterwards. > If the latter, what would be an example? > > [ian] >> There are two-way causal processes between the lower and higher >> levels, and it is not helpful to think of these effects as >> "causation" in the traditional sense > > When someone has had too much alcohol, their thinking becomes muddled. > When someone is frightened, they think they see things in shaddows. > Why is it "not helpful to think of these effects as 'causation' in the > traditional sense"? > Craig > > 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/ > 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/
