Re: Causality vs. Entailment

[Ayten Aydin <***>]

Dear John,

 

I reflected on your following query-cum-conception on entailment as expressed in your sentence:

 

"I was inclined to read entailment as the 'effect' (consequence?) end of a causality-based process (pair?) where 'cause' is the originating end."

 

I may not be saying anything new to you but still my query-cum-conception for 'entailment' is: It occurs as an entanglement of many ingredients in nonlinear processes, that is it happens in complex systems to bring about something new - never existed before - out of several existing things.   In this sense, poetically thinking,  "entailment" is the 'magic wand' which looks for suitable matches and potential connections among them and weld them to produce an emergent thing. This process should be self-organizing. It needs diversity gradually which increases as the system's complexity increases, and thus it goes away from simple systems where the cause&effect chain operates. There, there is no need for entailment, it is a direct cause and resulting something/effect.

 

Certainly I need confirmation or correction as this concept is one of the foundational stones of Rosennean Theory, I guess.

 

On our second query:

"I still hope that somebody (JK? DF? AA?) has an idea what circumstances prompted (not caused - as in a narrow model-view) the 'change' from the genderless procaryotic mitosis world to evolve into an (eucaryotic) bisexual proliferation."

 

Is it not questioning the initial conditions for the emergence of life, thus directly related to the question of "What is Life?" and the chain of evolution also fro simple cell to gradually complexing -both physically and psychologically- living bodies. 

 

I am however naively wondering whether we are not going back to querying initial conditions of the appearence of both simplicity and then gradually complexity on earth in general?? A revision may not be a bad idea!

 

My best,

Aten

----- Original Message -----

From: "John M" <***>

To: <***>

Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 1:45 AM

Subject: Re: Causality vs. Entailment

> Dear Steve,
> I 
always had my linguistic problems with 'entaliment', so I looked up my
> 
li'l dictionary which said: "entail": 'involve, as a necessary result',
> 
while "cause" is the other end: 'something that brings about a result'. 
I
> was inclined to read entailment as the 'effect' (consequence?) end of 
a
> causality-based process (pair?) where 'cause' is the originating 
end.
> 
> I still hope that somebody (JK? DF? AA?) has an idea what 
circumstances
> prompted (not caused - as in a narrow model-view) the 
'change' from the
> genderless procaryotic mitosis world to evolve into an 
(eucaryotic) bisexual
> proliferation.
> The idea of "genders" had 
to appear (plurale tantum<G>)
> The eucaryotic appearance proper is 
not enough - I think.
> 
> John M
> 
> 
> ----- 
Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Johnson" <***>
> To: 
<***>
> Sent: 
Thursday, February 10, 2005 9:50 AM
> Subject: Causality vs. 
Entailment
> 
> 
> > When I read Rosen I always have the 
feeling that when
> > he uses the words entail/entailment he does not 
quite
> > mean cause/causality in the normal sense of the word.
> 
> For example, I feel that  in Judith's quote below it
> > 
would not make sense to say that "each gender causes
> > the other" but 
it does make sense to say that "each
> > gender entails the 
other".
> >
> > Am I correct that there is a distinction 
between
> > entailment and causality/causes in the way Rosen 
uses
> > these terms? If so, can someone share their
> > 
understanding of the difference?
> >
> 
>