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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Marcus, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Is this the butterfly-flap argument in another form? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Ok, I am improvising here: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Let us say that a group of tourists goes to camp under Standing Rock, a geological formation known for its apparent precariousness. Unbeknownst to the campers and the park rangers, erosion due to a rainstorm the previous night had undermined the foundation of the rock, leaving as precarious as it looked. During the night, a mouse walked out on the rock, and leaning over to peer at the sleeping campers below, tipped over the rock, crushing the tourists. (We Santa Feans are given to ghoulish tourist stories.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Brought to trial, the mouse’s lawyer claimed that the mouse’s responsible, while not zero, was so small with respect to the other causal forces involved as to be negligible. The mouse was acquitted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Moral: Some causes are so small as to not be worth talking about. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>I think this is a crappy argument, but I had fun writing it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nick <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Clark University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Friam [mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Marcus Daniels<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, April 30, 2019 9:28 PM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick writes:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>“<span style='color:black'>But when you go on to say that nature is determined by unknowable causes that’s an oxymoron. To the extent that anything is caused, by whatever means, it reveals its causes in its behavior. To the extent that events are random, no cause is revealed and no cause exists.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The apparently random cause could have been mixed-in long ago, far out of scope from a contemporary experiment. So to understand the behavior, you’d have to go back in time and follow everything (sub-atomically) that followed. It doesn’t mean there is no cause, just that it is meaningless in practice to talk about it – it is too far away.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Marcus<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>