<div dir="auto">I believe that one can believe a, b, and c independently even if a and b entail (or cause) c.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Also, in the definition of causation I reported earlier I carefully said "a cause" rather than "the cause".</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I taught resolution theorem proving in the AI course that I taught. That's a lot of logic.<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">---<br>Frank C. Wimberly<br>140 Calle Ojo Feliz, <br>Santa Fe, NM 87505<br><br>505 670-9918<br>Santa Fe, NM</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:37 AM <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">OK, so what if I believe x, and I believe y and I believe that beliefs x+y<br>
entail z? Then I believe z, right? But do we want to say that I believe z<br>
BECAUSE I believed x and y? Entailment never "entails" belief unless I<br>
believe in the laws of logic, right? For some reason I want to reserve<br>
"cause" for the situation which believing y and believing that x+y entails<br>
z, I came to believe z because I came to believe x. <br>
<br>
I am plainly out of my depth, here. I mean, even more than usual. We need<br>
a logician, or 4 years at St. Johns, or both. I think that a logician<br>
consultant would say -- wearily -- that Nick wants to limit the word cause<br>
to "efficient" causes, that experimental psychologists tend to do that, etc.<br>
So then the question becomes, is the causality asserted when I say that the<br>
snifter broke because I left it on the table when I went to bed AND the cat<br>
knocked it off the table while eating the dip from last night's party the<br>
same causality as I might assert if I said that the snifter broke BECAUSE it<br>
was brittle. And is the causality that we assert when we assert sidewise<br>
causality -- a sequence of events -- in any way related to the causality<br>
that we assert when we assert upward or downward causality. <br>
<br>
Glen has offered, and EricS has endorsed, a work-around for all this mess<br>
which I have yet to understand. Really, I shouldn't speak to this issue any<br>
more before I have another go at their messages, which I attach. <br>
<br>
Nick <br>
<br>
Nicholas Thompson<br>
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<br>
Clark University<br>
<a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><br>
<a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale<br>
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 6:07 AM<br>
To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">friam@redfish.com</a><br>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] better simulating actual FriAM<br>
<br>
What about something being believably prior rather than just temporally<br>
prior? Perhaps, we would use a different word than cause?<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
Sent from: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br>
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</blockquote></div>