<div dir="auto">Search for "Glymour publications CMU waste mind" to read a paper on related topics by my erstwhile boss, who is a well-known philosopher of science. Don't worry, he has a very good sense of humor.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Frank<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">-----------------------------------<br>Frank Wimberly<br><br>My memoir:<br><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly">https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly</a><br><br>My scientific publications:<br><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2">https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2</a><br><br>Phone (505) 670-9918</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 4:46 PM Nick Thompson <<a href="mailto:nickthompson@earthlink.net">nickthompson@earthlink.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class="m_6839501561990752491WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt">A Homily from the Mother Church</span></b>,<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Dear Bretheren and Sisteren, <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Was it because Robert Holmes returned to the fold, or was it just a coincidence that today we returned to discussions of such topics as emergence, determination, downward causality, and the possibility of explanatory reduction of all phenomena to particle physics. Now, in the past, where this matter has always seemed to settle, is on the idea that while it is IN PRINCIPLE true that everything is determined and that, if we had but time, and computer enough, we could predict the effect of the butterfly’s flap on Hurricane Michael, in PRACTICE it’s a waste of time thinking about because we can’t, we won’t, and we never will. This solution has the joint benefit of conceding that phys<b><i>ics</i></b> is the queen of sciences, yet allowing us to tell phys<b><i>icists</i></b> to go screw themselves because, for most of the things we think about, they are TOTALLY irrelevant. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">I have never been happy with this solution. It’s just not <i>Jesuitical </i>for me. As many of you know (because you have suffered through it) I have read a lot of C. S. Peirce since the last time we talked about these issues at FRIAM, so I was led to wonder Peirce has given me any purchase on these questions in the meantime. So here is what I came away from our discussions with: <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u><i>Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.</i> Now, please, I would like to bracket for once that fact that what I just wrote is non-sense. Probabilities are relative frequencies and inhere, therefore, to categories of events, not to individual events. Unless we are careful, this will lead us to an uncomfortable discussion of how we will ever know if event A1 and A2 belong to the same category and, I think, will soon discover that we are in a vicious circle. So PLEASE, let’s not go there. Allow me: “<i>Determination means just, event A is accompanied by a higher than average probability of event B.</i> ”<u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>Every event is accompanied by an infinity of other events which have nothing to do with it. I type the words, “Vladimir, Go Brush Your Teeth” and, <i>mirabile dictu</i>, Putin is brushing his teach. Yet there is no connection between those events. Most pairs of events are like that. Or, as Peirce puts it, the world is just about as random as it could be. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>If there is ANY order in the world – and Peirce thinks there is – organisms that smoked that order out would be much better off than organisms that ignored it. Groups of organisms that learned from one another such contingencies would be better off than groups that didn’t , etc. Indeed, physical structures that were in accord with such lawful relations (think orbits) would be more enduring than others. Thus, that the world around us is mostly orderly is because we have adapted to, sought out and thrived in to that small part of it where order prevails.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>Not all determination is simple. Some events are themselves complex events. So event X can consist of the concatenation of events A, B, and C, and event Y can be determined by such a concatenation. Any event that is determined by the organization of its component events is said to be an <i>emergent</i>. That a triangular structure holds weight is an emergent of the placement and attachment of its three legs. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>5.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>Upward causation is partial. Levels of organization supervene upon the properties of the events of which they are composed. From the strength of the triangle one can infer something about the parts that make it up, but from the parts themselves, lacking information about their arrangement, one cannot determine that the triangle will be strong.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>6.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>Some structures are capable of generating their parts. A supercell thunderstorm can arrange the atmosphere around it in a manner that will generate more thunderstorms. A protein can arrange amino acids to make a protein. In such systems, at least, there is downward causality. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="m_6839501561990752491MsoListParagraph"><u></u><span>7.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><u></u>So, is everything reducible to particle physics? No. Not unless you believe that two by four’s are particles. I would submit, therefore, that every physicist, no matter how wise, no matter how big his computer might be, will require engineers to construct his particle accelerator. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">So there! <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas S. Thompson<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Clark University<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</a><u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div></div>============================================================<br>
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