[FRIAM] Downward Hicausation

Tue Nov 21 17:00:10 EST 2017

Nick,

As I recall, there is more than one problem with the counterfactual
definition of causation.  I think once when we talked about this some years
ago I told you that the definition of causation that my CMU colleagues find
most useful is: A causes B if the occurrence of A causes a change in the
probabilities of the possible outcomes of observing B.  I think you felt
that was unsatisfactory because you said that attempts to specify the
probability of an event were as impossible as defining causation.  I
disconcerted you briefly by saying that the probability of heads given a
fair coin is one half (0.5).  Elaborating this approach could take some
effort.  Beware the tendency to think that if you can't immediately measure
something then it doesn't exist.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Nov 21, 2017 11:04 AM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Frank,
>
>
>
> Sorry I let this slip by the first time.
>
>
>
> I have never understood how one can square the counterfactual definition
> of causality
>
>
>
> *Hume … concluded with a statement that A causes B if B would not have
> occurred unless A had occurred.*
>
>
>
>
>
> With the Pragamatic Maxim
>
>
>
>
>
> *Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we
> conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of
> these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.*
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Frank
> Wimberly
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 19, 2017 3:43 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation
>
>
>
> Nick, you must have known you would eventually provoke me:
>
>
>
> -Correlation is not causation
>
> Sometimes you can infer a causal direction from observational data.
> Interested readers can see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
> pmc/articles/PMC5340263/
>
> By my former colleagues Scheines and Ramsey.
>
>
>
> -Hume
>
> After writing a long alternative to the counterfactual definition of
> causation, he concluded with a statement that A causes B if B would not
> have occurred unless A had occurred.
>
>
>
> Frank
>
> Frank Wimberly
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2017 3:28 PM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Roger.  I LIKE it.
>
>
>
> When people say, “Correlation is not causation” they are living in a
> momentary illusion that they know what causation is.  AT the very least,
> causation consists of the results of some number of experiments in which
> the second correlate is denied by a failure to produce the first, but not
> vv.  But most people want more from causal statements.  They want
> METAPHYSICS.  As I guess Hume was fond of pointing out, Causes are
> attributions we make to experiences, not things experiences do to one
> another.   For someone to deny the existence of downward causality, that
> person has first to state what it is s/he imagines that s/he is denying.
> In my world, where “causes” are just “prior necessary or sufficient
> correlates”, if we can show that demands on the bean plant as a whole lead
> to changes in its parts, we have “downward causation”.  And there is no
> juicier form of downward causation to be had, or to be denied.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger
> Critchlow
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 19, 2017 10:31 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation
>
>
>
> Nick --
>
>
>
> Sure, bean plants growing in time lapse is an excellent example of coarse
> graining.  And you can imagine an animator making a cartoon of the same
> time lapse, in fact, I remember a classic cartoon doing this, even to the
> point of giving the plant hands to reach with and a face.  While the video
> might be taken to be caused by underlying microscopic dynamics too detailed
> to be specified except in imagination, the cartoon clearly is the
> animator's expression of a coarse grained understanding of the plant.
>
>
>
> So this may be a dodge, but it seems an interesting dodge.  It seems that
> everyone knows that correlation is not causation, yet all causal
> explanations start with correlation, and only become causal when someone
> tweaks the causal levers to get the predicted effects and describes how to
> do it in a way that can be replicated.
>
>
>
> So when you manipulate the source of light to manipulate the plant's
> growth, the plant depends on the coarse grained result to live.  The plant
> does not depend on a microscopic trajectory to live because any particular
> microscopic trajectory is impossibly improbable, the plant depends on vast
> numbers of trajectories which all lead to the required coarse grained
> result, or something close enough for jazz.  The plant is organized in such
> a way that it marshalls sufficient microscopic resources to accomplish its
> coarse grained purposes.
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 11:49 AM, Nick Thompson <
> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Ahh!  Thanks Roger.  That blows some life into it for me.  Is watching a
> bean plant grow in time lapse an example of coarse-graining?  So let’s
> imagine we are watching such an image and we notice that the plant “reaches
> for the sun”.  (I.e., we move the light around and the plant follows it as
> it grows.)    Now let’s also imagine (ex hypothesis, mind you!) that the
> plant puts out extra roots on the opposite side to stabilize it.  I would
> call that top-down causation, I guess.
>
>
>
> I dunno.  Anything that comes out of SFI is kind of ink-blots for me.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger
> Critchlow
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 19, 2017 3:01 AM
>
>
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation
>
>
>
> I looked at the abstract and thought, of course, if you "coarse grain" the
> visual field, then you synthesize objects out of groups of pixels that
> cohere together in time and space.  In time you might even come to blame
> the imputed objects for their presumed effects in the world.  Perhaps it's
> an illusion, or a hallucination, or a tautology, but once you summon a
> coarse grained entity into existence it will have coarse grained
> consequences, including changes of behavior in the summoner which are
> explained as reactions to coarse grained observations.
>
>
>
> So I didn't read as hard as Nick, I just took the operational view laid
> out in the abstract and imagined it.  Causation is at root a tool that
> helps an organism to live long and to prosper.  The observation and
> reaction which saves a life or facilitates reproduction or helps progeny
> mature is primary.
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 11:25 PM, Nick Thompson <
> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Hi, Roger,
>
>
>
> Can you say what you thought was “nice” about it.  (As you know, it makes
> me nervous to disagree with you about stuff).  I struggled with the
> article.  I thought at one point she confused aggregate with emergent
> properties. Emergent properties are properties of the whole that are
> dependent on the temporal or spatial arrangement of the parts.  Thus the
> enzymatic properties of proteins, which depend on the arrangement of their
> amino acids, are emergent properties.   Also, the standard definition of
> materialism is the believe that everything real consists of *matter and
> its relations. * So entertaining the notion that relations are not
> material (and therefore incapable of being causal) is … well … silly.
>  Finally, I have always suspected that downward causation is an example of
> a “mystery” i.e., confusion that arises when words are applied to a
> situation where they aren’t equal to the task.  (“What is the sound of one
> hand clapping?”)  I think whenever we talk about causes we are trying to do
> with physical events what we do with social and legal ones … we are trying
> to assign responsibility for event so we can blame or praise the thing that
> “caused” it.  It’s a form of animism.  To say that A is a cause of B is
> only to say that variations in A have been shown, experimentally, to be
> necessary and or sufficient for variations in B.  Causal statements ALWAYS
> come with an “other things being equal” clause, *ceteris paribus*.  To
> the extent that emergent properties can be shown to be necessary or
> sufficient for some change in the property of some parts of the whole, we
> have downward causation, no?   Now the shape of the hemoglobin molecule is
> an emergent property of that molecule which determines whether it binds
> oxygen in its active site.  Whether or not it has oxygen bound to its
> active site determines its shape.  Surely one of these is downward
> causation.  I am just no sure which. (};-|)
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger
> Critchlow
> *Sent:* Saturday, November 18, 2017 6:15 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Downward causation
>
>
>
> Nice.
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 12:29 PM, Carl Tollander <carl at plektyx.com> wrote:
>
> Of interest, also the whole issue... http://rsta.
> royalsocietypublishing.org/content/375/2109/20160338
>
>
>
> C
>
>
>
>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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