Life, Awareness and Causality

[BaalChatzaf]

For me, I don't feel I understand something in the physical world until I can picture the dynamics in terms of the actions and interactions of the physical components of the observed systems. Modern physics is at odds with this approach. I'm not convinced modern physics is right.

Paul

On the matter of lift see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodynamic_l...t_on_an_airfoil

As to "picturing" the underlying reality of the world, how do you "picture" something that is fifteen orders of magnitude smaller than anything our best instruments can resolve.

Our best instruments are fifteen orders of magnitude more crude than Planck Length. The best we can do is -model the phenomena- with the most appropriate mathematical tools. That is as close to "truth" as science can get.

By the way, Nature does not care what you or I can understand. Nature is what it is. Modern physics (so far) has revealed more of Nature than any other approach. Physics bloomed when it take the path of abstract mathematical modeling. Our best mathematical tools (particularly quantum field theory) requires infinite dimension Hilbert Space. Do you think you can '"picture" that?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mindy Newton]

Paul,

I'm familiar with "degrees of freedom" in statistical calculations. I'm not familiar with it being used as you do, which is as a physical property? Basically, I believe, it means some way in which a thing is indeterminate. In calculations, that just means one doesn't know what value it takes. But that can't be what it means in physics/metaphysics. Could you fill me in?

--Mindy

[Paul Mawdsley]

This paragraph caused a coin to drop in my head. This is what bothers me about determinism. It is reactive only on a metaphysical level. I find the universe to be made up of action and reaction, with the cause of action coming from the top down and the cause of reaction coming from the bottom up.

Michael,

Your top-down "cause of action" reminds me of David Bohm's causal interpretation of quantum theory with its idea of a pilot wave, that is shaped by the whole system, guiding a particle's intrinsic energy. I will make some time later to outline Bohm's novel approach to thinking about causation, its relation to interpreting quantum theory, and its relation to what you are saying.

Paul

Michael,

You say you "find the universe to be made up of action and reaction, with the cause of action coming from the top down and the cause of reaction coming from the bottom up." I take this to mean that you see the need for two principles of causation to account for the phenomena you observe and experience. Not only are an entities actions reactions to the antecedent actions of other entities, as in traditional concepts of determinism, but an entities actions are determined by the shape or form of the systems of which it is a part. Somehow whole systems can shape the behaviour of its parts from the top down, and you refer to this shaping of behaviour by the form of the system as the "cause of action."

Bohm's causal interpretation of quantum theory is an attempt to reinterpret the evidence and the mathematics supporting quantum mechanics using a similar notion of causation to your top-down "cause of action." In Science, Order, and Creativity Bohm illustrates his view:

In the causal interpretation, the electron moves under its own energy, but the information in the form of the quantum wave directs the energy of the electron.

[...]

...the form of the quantum potential can dominate behaviour. In other words, information contained within the quantum potential [the form of the whole field] will determine the outcome of a quantum process. Indeed it is useful to extend this idea to what could be called active information. The basic idea of active information is that a form, having very little energy, enters into and directs a much greater energy. This notion of an original energy form acting to "inform," or put form into, a much larger energy has significant applications in many areas beyond quantum theory.

David Peat, a colleague and co-author with Bohm, speaks of Bohm's view (see here):

The action of the quantum potential is not to push or pull the electron along its path. Rather, Bohm likened it to a radar signal that guides a ship approaching a harbor. The information within the radar signal acts, via a computer or automated steering device, to change the direction of the ship. Information itself does not push the ship, rather it "in-forms" the gross energy of the engines. Information therefore allows a distinction to be made between what could be called raw or "un-formed" energy an a more subtle energy, an activity that can be identified with information. This information acts on raw energy to give it form.

[...]

Information would have an objective nature. It would play an active role in giving "form" to energy and be responsible for quantum processes.

Bohm's novel idea about causation is that action, or reaction, is not only shaped by traditional pushes and pulls. It can be shaped by the information about the form of the whole system in which a thing acts.

Take O-L as an example. You and Kat have set the principles of behaviour for individual's to operate in this forum, or system. These principles shape this system and distinguish it from other forums or systems. The individuals who operate on this forum are informed by these principles, by the behaviours that are encouraged here, and by what they witness in others on this forum. The principles of this forum are the form of this system. This form doesn't shape the action of the individuals, but it does have a lower limit of what types of behaviour are acceptable, and it has an ideal limit of what behaviour is encouraged. These limits set the degrees of freedom in which we all operate. Our energy (and our choices made in the context of the systems in which we operate) causes our actions. The system, and our understanding of the system, shapes the limits in which we act. And our actions in turn reinforce and maintain the form of the system.

In this way systems cause actions. They set the limits of possible actions, while the individuals are free to act independently within those limits. If they exceed the limits, they get their freedoms limited, and ultimately, turfed out of the system. This would be no different, in principle, to what would happen if an air molecule exceeds the limits imposed by the form of a tornado.

This causal principle applies at all levels, from people in social systems, to air molecules in weather systems, to particles in quantum systems. The form of systems informs the limits of the behaviour for the parts of those systems. Now the question is: Are the actions of things within these limits determined by the antecedent actions of other things or is there something novel in the action of things (i.e.: is there some action intrinsic to the nature of entities) that allows actions not determined solely by the antecedent actions of other things?

This is where my idea of proactive causation arises. I decided proactive causation was necessary to add an element of novelty to break the deterministic model that leads to "only one physically possible future." If the form of systems sets the limits of possible behaviour, and if the antecedent actions of other things determine an entities actions--i.e.: if things are only reactive, then an entities actual actions within the limits shaped by the system is already determined. There is still no room for free will as I experience and understand it. Free will requires not only action alternatives. It requires the ability to initiate novel actions that explore the limits, or degrees of freedom, set by the systems in which it operates. The more that is explored and understood, and the more skills that are developed, the more of the possible degrees of freedom there is available to one's choices. But the principle of action must be within for any exploring of one's context, creative understanding of one's context, or the development of novel skills to expand one's ability to act in one's context.

This is where my thinking about causality and existence began. I am only now beginning to learn how to put my causal images into words. I am still not sure if my words communicate anything intelligible, but it's not in me to want to stop trying.

BTW- While I find Bohm and Peat's ideas interesting food for thought, I cannot say if I agree with the full extent of their conclusions. I think of their views more or less as interesting metaphors for reality that may offer insight. I treat Jung the same way. I'm not sure how each of these thinkers extends their views into metaphysical accounts of reality because I have not studied their work enough. If I think of some of the things they say as metaphysical descriptions of existence-- e.g: ideas of collective unconscious or synchronicity, I am quickly repelled. But if I think of what they say as being more metaphorical, I see it as very interesting and worthy of further exploration. I really don't like it when causality gets mushy in people's metaphysics and causal connections are made that include actions without a causal mechanism that fits the evidence.

With this in mind, and taking a metaphorical perspective, Peat's site has some interesting and provocative reading: see here.

I've only read a couple of his essays. There are definitely things that hit high on my flake meter, but there is much outside of the box thinking on the subjects we are discussing here.

Paul

[Brant Gaede]

Action causes reaction but WHAT reaction? If it's not predictive is it deterministic except in the rearview mirror? Then throw in evaluative consciousness. Why evaluate if the evaluation is irrelevant? Creation. Humans create.

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

Action causes reaction but WHAT reaction? If it's not predictive is it deterministic except in the rearview mirror? Then throw in evaluative consciousness. Why evaluate if the evaluation is irrelevant? Creation. Humans create.

Brant,

Causality is a metaphysical concept. Metaphysics is a holistic perspective; the whole of existence, all of space and time, are to be captured by one's metaphysical model. It starts with the principles that give it form, the principles of identity and causality, and it seeks to shape the action of its parts to create a whole view of existence. There is no rear view mirror in the metaphysical lens. If we are thinking metaphysics, we cannot throw evaluative consciousness in unless we can account for what it is and why it behaves as it does. What principles of identity and causality would produce a model of reality that can account for human creation? For that matter, what principles of identity and causality would produce a model of reality that can account for all we experience and do, including the nature of awareness and will themselves?

Metaphysics is the top-down method of understanding the nature of existence. Science is the bottom-up method of understanding existence. We'll know we have it right when both methods reach conclusions that agree. In the meantime we'll continue to have squabbles between the different approaches, often within the same individual.

Paul

[Brant Gaede]

Paul,

Not in the metaphysical but in the deterministic lens. The extreme determinist says nothing could be different, an absolutely unfalsifiable proposition.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Paul,

I have some trouble following all your reasoning on this and wherever else I read you. I don't know if I'm not smart-knowledgeable enough or whether you are steeped in an arcane if not specious jargon or a mixture of the two. So I have to ask you: where do you end up?

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

As to "picturing" the underlying reality of the world, how do you "picture" something that is fifteen orders of magnitude smaller than anything our best instruments can resolve.

Our best instruments are fifteen orders of magnitude more crude than Planck Length. The best we can do is -model the phenomena- with the most appropriate mathematical tools. That is as close to "truth" as science can get.

I haven't given up on causality, and the models of phenomena it can generate, yet.

By the way, Nature does not care what you or I can understand. Nature is what it is.

I never suggested otherwise. I do not equate the views of modern physics to nature.

Modern physics (so far) has revealed more of Nature than any other approach. Physics bloomed when it take the path of abstract mathematical modeling.

Agreed! This doesn't mean that mathematics and science are the only tools we have, or that we should discard other tools regardless of how poorly we have used them to date. Metaphysics has earned a bad name because it is a tool we haven't mastered. Causal modeling is to metaphysics what mathematical modeling is to science. To date our causal modeling has sucked! This is where our greatest advances are yet to be made in the pursuit of knowledge.

Our best mathematical tools (particularly quantum field theory) requires infinite dimension Hilbert Space. Do you think you can '"picture" that?

It doesn't matter whether or not I can picture "infinite dimension Hilbert Space." What does it mean? How do we interpret it physically? I can't picture infinity or eternity either. This doesn't mean I can't grasp the principles that shape existence in abstract images and generate a mental picture of how things work in an infinite and eternal universe.

Interpretation is the core issue in quantum theory. Causality is our fundamental principle of interpretation. The principle of causation we used to build classical physics was shown not to work in the quantum realm. Now we need to reevaluate our principle of causation, try to shape a new one that does fit the facts, and attempt to interpret these things again. Causality is not a given, we have to create it. Let's create a better model of causation with which we can build a better model of reality. I see this as the obvious conclusion but I seem to be alone.

Paul

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul,

I have some trouble following all your reasoning on this and wherever else I read you. I don't know if I'm not smart-knowledgeable enough or whether you are steeped in an arcane if not specious jargon or a mixture of the two. So I have to ask you: where do you end up?

--Brant

Brant,

I have no doubt about your knowledge or intelligence. I have trouble communicating. I think in images, especially causal images. I'm not particularly well read but I've picked up bits and pieces of language to try to help me express what I see. And I hope to hell that someone eventually understands something.

Thinking in causal images helps me think way outside of the box our language otherwise keeps us in, but it makes it difficult to find words that can help someone else form images that parallel my own. When I do put words to the images, I'm often not using them the way they are generally used. This just adds to the confusion. When I talk about causality, I'm talking about a causal paradigm that is on the cusp of emerging. I see it trying to break through in so many places but a common language for it is not there yet. I'm just going to keep trying to talk about it until someone finally says, "I get it!"

My main purpose for being on OL is to continue to explore other perspectives, develop my ideas and express my thoughts, and to strive to break through this general communication barrier. The best feedback I can get is telling me when you don't understand what the hell I'm talking about. It shows me where I need to focus my efforts.

Thanks,

Paul

[Brant Gaede]

Paul,

I have some trouble following all your reasoning on this and wherever else I read you. I don't know if I'm not smart-knowledgeable enough or whether you are steeped in an arcane if not specious jargon or a mixture of the two. So I have to ask you: where do you end up?

--Brant

Brant,

I have no doubt about your knowledge or intelligence. I have trouble communicating. I think in images, especially causal images. I'm not particularly well read but I've picked up bits and pieces of language to try to help me express what I see. And I hope to hell that someone eventually understands something.

Thinking in causal images helps me think way outside of the box our language otherwise keeps us in, but it makes it difficult to find words that can help someone else form images that parallel my own. When I do put words to the images, I'm often not using them the way they are generally used. This just adds to the confusion. When I talk about causality, I'm talking about a causal paradigm that is on the cusp of emerging. I see it trying to break through in so many places but a common language for it is not there yet. I'm just going to keep trying to talk about it until someone finally says, "I get it!"

My main purpose for being on OL is to continue to explore other perspectives, develop my ideas and express my thoughts, and to strive to break through this general communication barrier. The best feedback I can get is telling me when you don't understand what the hell I'm talking about. It shows me where I need to focus my efforts.

Thanks,

Paul

But that's the purpose and use of my question. Images are ultimately metaphors, aren't they? We need the words for the bottom line.

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul,

Not in the metaphysical but in the deterministic lens. The extreme determinist says nothing could be different, an absolutely unfalsifiable proposition.

Brant,

The problem is with trying to falsify a metaphysical concept on empirical grounds. Determinism is a metaphysical conclusion shaped by a particular concept of causation: physical reactive causation. It is falsifiable in the same realm from which it grew, the metaphysical realm. As I said before, metaphysics is a holistic view of existence. The test for a metaphysical view is non-contradiction and fit with the evidence. The form cannot contradict the principles from which it was shaped. To fit the evidence the deterministic view leads to a breakdown in the causation on which it is based, at the quantum level. This is self-contradiction.

If another concept of causation shapes a different view of existence, that is causal but not deterministic, and this view of existence fits the evidence without self-contradiction, then deterministic causation will be history.

Paul

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Metaphysics is the top-down method of understanding the nature of existence. Science is the bottom-up method of understanding existence. We'll know we have it right when both methods reach conclusions that agree. In the meantime we'll continue to have squabbles between the different approaches, often within the same individual.

Paul,

This is exactly as I see it. Both exist.

One side usually cuts off his nose to spite his face. (That goes for both sides.)

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Paul,

This is exactly as I see it. Both exist.

One side usually cuts off his nose to spite his face. (That goes for both sides.)

Michael

Yeah. But which side delivered the transistors? The anti-biotics? The titanium hip replacements? The GPS location devices? Who has -really- seen the stars? The Greek philosophers or Galileo and the modern astronomers?

What have the metaphysics folk done for us lately? Three thousand years of failure and you still have hope. Your faith is touching. The best praise of Greek metaphysics we can utter, is that it indirectly launched modern science. Other than that it has been a long range bust.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yeah. But which side delivered the transistors? The anti-biotics? The titanium hip replacements? The GPS location devices? Who has -really- seen the stars? The Greek philosophers or Galileo and the modern astronomers?

Bob,

Both.

One doesn't exist without the other.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul,

I'm familiar with "degrees of freedom" in statistical calculations. I'm not familiar with it being used as you do, which is as a physical property? Basically, I believe, it means some way in which a thing is indeterminate. In calculations, that just means one doesn't know what value it takes. But that can't be what it means in physics/metaphysics. Could you fill me in?

--Mindy

Mindy,

I don't know if some of the things I have written since your post have helped to clarify my use of "degrees of freedom" but I'll try to make things clearer. In considering the nature of free will Ellen wrote, " I think that it MUST BE the case that there are real options." I'm using "degrees of freedom" in a related but more general causal sense to represent the idea that there are real options available to an entity's actions, and these options are shaped by the physical context in which the thing acts. This idea applies to an entity, whether it is a person acting according to his nature in the real and perceived context of his physical and social degrees of freedom, or it is an air molecule moving away from filled spaces and toward empty spaces, acting according to its nature in the context of its physical degrees of freedom.

Entities, whether electrons, dust particles or people, occupy physical space (people also occupy social space) and have duration through time. The space occupied by one entity is a limit set on the action of another entity. If entities are in random motion with a random distribution, interactions will cause them to move to open spaces and maximize their entropy. In this case there is no form to the system of which they are a part. The limit of the action of an entity is simply determined by the random actions of other entities in the system. There is no systematic shape to there degrees of freedom.

However, if the actions of the entities become organized, if a state of flow develops where entities tend to move in the "slip stream" of other entities, as would be the case in waves and currents, then the degrees of freedom and the action of a given entity becomes shaped by the form of the whole system. The action of the parts are shaped by the form of the whole.

Imagine the path of a dust particle in a tornado. According to Newton's laws of motion, the particle will tend to move in straight lines unless otherwise acted upon. What acts upon the dust particle to make it move up the vortex? Other molecules. Other molecules in the vortex shape the motion of the dust particle. A tornado is a current that shapes the form of the whole system. The dust particle's lateral motion is resisted by other molecules occupying this space, while motion in the direction of the current is encouraged by the "slip stream" effect (systematic voids left in the immediate wake of a moving particle). The form of the system, the tornado current, determines the degrees of freedom available to the dust particle, and determines how its energy will be expressed. The action of the parts determine the shape of the system and the shape of the system determines the action of the parts. This is reciprocal causation between part and whole. It is all based on the idea of degrees of freedom shaping the expression of an entities action potential.

Bottom line: The degrees of freedom are the physical options available to an entity's actions. The degrees of freedom are determined by spaces not occupied by other entities (which can be affected by the form of the systems of which they are a part) and the action alternatives available to the entity. That is, the degrees of freedom for an entity are determined by the nature of that entity and the context in which it acts. If the entity is a human being, then the degrees of freedom are determined by his nature, the context in which he acts, his understanding of his nature, and his understanding of the context in which he acts. The latter two emphasize the importance of metaphysics in our everyday lives. Our understanding of identity and causality shape our understanding of our nature and our understanding of the context in which we act. This determines our degrees of freedom in every choice we make in our daily lives.

Paul

[BaalChatzaf]

Yeah. But which side delivered the transistors? The anti-biotics? The titanium hip replacements? The GPS location devices? Who has -really- seen the stars? The Greek philosophers or Galileo and the modern astronomers?

Bob,

Both.

One doesn't exist without the other.

Michael

What has metaphysics done for phyhsical science lately?

I turns out there are serious -epistemological- questions connected with leading edge scientific research, but metaphysics, particularly aristotelean metaphysics has been more of an impediment than a help to physics.

ba'al chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

What has language done for book-writing lately?

That's an example of how your question sounds to me.

Michael

[Mindy Newton]

Bob,

What has language done for book-writing lately?

That's an example of how your question sounds to me.

Michael

HELP. I can't get into my own blog. Your in-box is full, MSK.

--Mindy

[Paul Mawdsley]

What has metaphysics done for phyhsical science lately?

Very little. In fact, I would say the metaphysical ball has been dropped. Problem is, I don't think modern philosophers make the best metaphysicians. The best metaphysics in the last hundred years has been produced, intentionally or not, by scientists, especially those resisting the Copenhagen Interpretation. Metaphysics is holistic and, in the image of science, philosophy seems to have become very much compartmentalized. Compartmentalized holism doesn't work.

At its root metaphysics, like science, is grounded in method. The scientific method starts with the evidence drawn from the senses and isolated into a perceptual field (a local and extroverted orientation of consciousness). It breaks down this perceptual field into isolated patterns via systematic observation, measurement, causal modeling (think of Faraday), mathematical modeling (think of Maxwell), theory testing, and interpreting these models to build a worldview from the ground up. Science needs metaphysics to generate and test models of causation for both the causal modeling and the interpretation of mathematical models which play a role in the scientific method.

The metaphysical method starts with the evidence drawn from the senses and integrated into a phenomenological field (a global and introverted orientation of consciousness). The principles of identity and causality used to shape the phenomenological field begin as patterns of contiguous association isolated in the perceptual field and are further developed as we create models of necessary connection. These models of identity and causation change and evolve as we develop through childhood (and sometimes into adulthood). As these principles evolve, so too does our phenomenological field.

The principles of identity and causality shape the phenomenological field by limiting the degrees of freedom available for generating causal models, which connect the evidence that is provided by the perceptual field, and is extended by the scientific method, into a global view. That is, metaphysics is a method for integrating the evidence from the top-down that requires information from the scientific method to shape its holistic models.

As Michael points out, metaphysics needs to be informed by science and science needs to be informed by metaphysics. What is needed is better metaphysics. And better metaphysics is informed by science and shaped by better principles of identity and causality.

Paul

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

What has language done for book-writing lately?

That's an example of how your question sounds to me.

Michael

HELP. I can't get into my own blog. Your in-box is full, MSK.

--Mindy

Good thing you aren't IN your blog and can't get out!

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

HELP. I can't get into my own blog. Your in-box is full, MSK.

Mindy,

I archived some of my messages and freed up space in my inbox. I will forward your blog problem to Kat. She does the blog maintenance. If you could be more specific, that would help. Here's a general fix-it. Often clearing your browser cookies eliminates a glitch.

Michael