Re: Could you give me your analysis of this?

[John Kineman <***>]

Howard,

Hmm. We seem to agree in our otherise sharp disagreement. I would concur
that everything science produces is a metaphore; but when you singled
out Aristotelian causality as a metaphore, it was presumably in contrast
to other ideas that you consider less metaphorical. My statement was to
indicate that it was no more or less so, and just as valid a framework
as anything else. Bertrand Russell may feel that discussing causes as
actual realities is past, and that is certainly so, but science does not
exist if it does not discuss models of causes - which I hope we both
realize is what we mean by "real." This bridges the instrumental and
realist interpetations - whichever you chose, we are still making models
of presumed regularities in nature and prefering some models to others,
and in that sense unavoidably considering them in some sense "real."
Let's not degrade this into a philosophical discussion about why nothing
can be considered real and yet we must find some structure for thought,
etc., etc., - we are both quite familiar with all that.

So we agree that nowhere in science can it be argued that something is
"real" - that is an assumption that is made for the purpose of
establishing the elements of an argument about how the proposed
realities work, i.e., a theory. The arguments for or against correctness
can only be made about the theory, which stands on its assumptions. The
arguments for or against the basic framework of assumptions, i.e., the
terms for discussing "reality" or whatever concept one applies to what
happens in nature, are philosophical and form the basis of all science.
Changing them is the stuff of Kuhnian revolutions. Let's not rehash all
that. What I am saying here is that we are exploring a modified or
expanded philosophical basis for reality in Rosen's ideas. Is that OK?

Aside from trying to get back to the original point, I do appreciate the
history of science and philosophy that you describe. It is quite
fascinating to ponder the evolution of ideas and to understand how we
get our brains stuck on ideas that, as you say, "say more than the laws
say." In that regard, do the laws in fact say that there are absolute
laws? They do not. So, laws themselves are pure metaphysics too. Once we
agree that we are going to try to say something about nature, call it
what you like - regularities, laws, causes, it doesn't really matter as
long as we remember not to take any idea too seriously. Now, we should
return to discussing Aristotle's typology of causes and its application
to legitimate scientific frameworks, including those that try to invent
these highly metaphorical and metaphysical "laws" that physics is so
fond of and that everyone else tries to copy in their fully restricted
physical sense, thus mis-applying them in other disciplines to more
richly entailed systems.

JK



Howard Pattee wrote:

> John writes,
> Howard, I don't understand your claim that A-causality is metaphorical. In a
> causal analysis it provides the elements of the analysis. A metaphore is
> something that is "like" something else. Here we are saying that these
> causes are real.
>
> Saying causes are real is your assertion. It is not an argument. I agree with most modern philosophers and scientists (see, e.g. “Causation” in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy) that the concept of cause is an anthropomorphic concept that is gratuitous for scientific models. I am not as extreme as Bertrand Russell who regarded the concept of cause as “a relic of a bygone age.” I think the concept of causality is useful, but not because it corresponds to anything that a physicist would call real. It is a metaphor for what humans feel when they think they have control. Hume explains why the concept of control is only a metaphor.
>
> The anthropomorphic metaphors of Aristotle’s four causes are made clear by his examples, all of which involve human or divine control of events. I am not at all against metaphor. The most creative ideas in physics are metaphors. I am only recommending not confusing metaphors with reality.
>
> As a matter of the history of religion and science, early Christian theologians, like St. Augustine, adopted Aristotle’s causes, along with his logic. The concept of determinism follows from the idea that nothing happens without a cause. Only God was uncaused, but everything else was determined by causes. Classical physics inherited determinism largely because Newton was a good Christian. Even Einstein couldn’t believe God played dice.
>
> The Epicurean concept of cause is now accepted in physics as ontologically chaotic events that have no cause. The world is not deterministic. All we can observe is that probabilistic events occur in a temporal sequence. We can write laws that predict some of these sequences. To say why one event follows another is to try to say more than what the laws say, and this is pure metaphysics. The concept of cause arises when we humans think we have control of events, or a choice. All jurisprudence is based on this assumption. When a plane crashes we do not think of gravity as the cause. We try to find the person who screwed up.
>
> Howard