[FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

Thu Oct 29 11:59:37 EDT 2020

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar components in equilibrium.

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer to it in the course of saying something else.

3. So the physicists come up with a tag.  It should be sort of evocative, sort of catchy, and easy to remember.  Aha!  “Self-organization”, to keep in mind that the organization is resulting from low-level local features, and not from the boundary conditions imposed on the system beyond that local stuff.

4. Nick encounters the term.  It happens to contain two words about which he cares very very much, so to him they are not mere hackage generated by some physicists, but freighted with meaning.

5. Nick starts a thread: Which self?  Is it the same self before and after?  Is “organized” here a transitive or an intransitive verb?  If transitive, what is the object?  Can the same referent be both object and subject of a transitive verb?  Does that make the verb reflexive?  What are the implications for monists?  For dualists?

6. Friam is willing to engage.

7.  I write a long tedious email, trying to remind the humanists that the most important character trait of physicists is impatience.  

Eric

> On Oct 29, 2020, at 10:03 AM, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> Nick,
> 
> " I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is
> assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled."
> 
> By what definition? Your monist view that the self lacks ontological status in the first place?
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 5:48 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Jon,
> > 
> > Is a steam governor a case of downward causation?
> > 
> > This question will reveal, no doubt, that I don't understand  your previous
> > answer, but perhaps others will explain it to me. 
> > 
> > I am always troubled by the notion of "self-assembly" since the self that is
> > assembling is never, by definition, the self that is assembled. 
> > 
> > Perhaps I am getting tangled up in words again. 
> > 
> > n
> > 
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,aryOhfVU48KQtN6xZTrA9DuKF6rEe-ZppSYOdQn_1Py6Cpgt586u2buLg3DjT-c0qFESZFBn3sJm21uO2hXWV9yFGAeZn5lBmiyLY_mGvBNki6JGqZr5Vawr0Cc,&typo=1>
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of jon zingale
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:01 PM
> > To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
> > 
> > Nick,
> > 
> > Let's say I have a language designed to work with sticks, where for
> > instance, it makes sense to name certain relations *Triangle*. Additionally,
> > let's assume that the language is detailed enough to include less obvious
> > relations such as those which relate sticks to trees to soil and water.
> > Would it be cheap to narrowly define *downward causation* as the
> > manipulation of the world in accordance with this language to produce new
> > sticks?
> > 
> > Consider as another example when one manipulates charge in bulk using analog
> > filters. Here, a circuit designer may not need to know about spin or
> > superposition or a lot of other details about the universe. In fact, the
> > designer may not know how to write a "mid-frequency ranged filter" if they
> > were only given a quantum mechanical view of the world. They may, however,
> > know how to build such a filter if they are given appropriately shaped
> > conductive surfaces and coils.
> > 
> > My apologies in advance if this characterization (that of reducing *downward
> > causation* to manipulation of a domain-specific language) is horribly
> > flawed, but I spent this much time writing a response. So, there.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
> > 
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