[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

I'm glad we agree. I made the same points here:

https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090981.html
https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090983.html

To reiterate, we can't reverse engineer a builder's intention from the artifact. To go even further, we can't even do a *complete* job of characterizing the aspects of a thing, the aspects of environments, or the relations between them. Parallax is needed across all scales and in both directions. Polyphenism is parallax on the thing. Robustness is parallax on the environment. And counterfactuals are parallax on their coupling. 

One of the attractive qualities of modal realism is that it addresses both consistency (through concrete possible worlds) and completeness (through counterpart theory) in positing and testing various models. The problem becomes one of discovering which world you inhabit *from the data*, not from whatever abstracted models you may prefer.

On 12/1/21 6:35 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Me -> We've imputed in all cases. Certainly we can assume artificial systems were designed for a purpose, but we still don't know what that purpose is without imputing a model onto that system. And, in both cases, we could proceed to experiment with the system, in order to test the predictions of the imputed model and increase our confidence that we have imputed correctly. The ability to do these things does not distinguish between the two types of system. There are long and respected scientific traditions using experimental methods to gain confidence in our understanding of why certain systems were favored by natural selection, i.e., to determine the manner in which they help the organism better fit its environment. 
> 
> Me -> Well.... it might be reification in some sense, but that term usually implies inaccuracy, which we cannot know in this case without experimentation. Even with a system we designed ourselves, where we might have a lot of insight into why we designed the system the way we did, we certainly don't have perfect knowledge. All we have there is a model of our own behavior to impute off of. Once again, this doesn't clearly differentiate the two situations. In all of these situations it is a mistake to uncritically reify our initial intuitions about the system's purpose. 

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ