Paul, I can see your point, but this type of argument just depends on a particular view of causality and determinism, in terms of certain defined constants and variables. But what exactly that view is, may not be very explicit.
If e.g. you believed in the "iron theory of value", and you are faced with the observation that for each industry the variability in output values does not correlate positively with iron inputs, you could also argue that a positive correlation does nevertheless exist, but it is observed only we aggregate the data of several different industries. That is, our ability to establish a positive correlation or not may partly depend on how we decide to group and aggregate the observations. The correlation may not exist at one level, or from one angle, but we may be able to demonstrate it at another level or from another angle. The thoughts and desires of the Goddess could be considered a Bhaskarian "hidden causal mechanism" - the metaphorical expression of divine inclinations could be thought of as denoting a complex of causal influences about which we could build a model. Mathematical prowess often creates the illusion that "science" is being done. In reality, it may just be that a very large repertoire of very fine distinctions is being used to describe an aspect of the world in a personally satisfying way, just as a novelist might write a novel. Jurriaan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
