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Ayten's notion of entailment is accurate in depicting
entailment as sort of a form of "causal potential" although there is more
here than this. All causality is just a tiny fraction of the total potential
entailed by systems and their interactions. Entailment is also independent of
time or directionality, in that separate things (parts, components, stages,
interactivity, etc) can both entail/be-entailed-by one another in
totality, but not necessarily directly or specifically (like the
chicken and the egg). Causality is dependent on time flow, among other things,
where entailment is not.
Entailment describes relations, including potential, in totality.
Causality describes what happens. In this way, causality can be seen as
a subset of the total entailment potential of systems and can be used to
try to learn about the entailment relations within system organizations. It is
entailment that Robert Rosen was most seeking to understand because it
would include causality (and inference, as well-- which describes the
version of entailment expressed in modeling/simulations) within it. Entailment
is the more comprehensive category.
It's sort of like a situation where your pet dog reacts to
some new stimulus in ways you've never seen it behave before. Extreme heat,
extreme cold, earthquake, weather, whatever... The entailment was always
present, but this is the first causal example.
There have been cases of organisms that were thought to be fully
understood, only to have it suddenly become manifest that what we've seen is
only a very long larval stage and the organism undergoes a sudden metamorphosis
to reach some new stage (which we presume is the adult). The Axolotl, of Mexico,
was one such organism. It developed the capability of breeding while still in
its larval stage, a fairly well-known phenomenon (neotony). In this case, the
lakes where this salamander species lived was at very high altitude. When taken
to lower altitudes, the axolotls began to metamorphose into a fairly ordinary
salamander species.
My father was fascinated by the axolotl because he said it had far
more biological capability in its larval stage, which it lost when it
metamorphosed. For example, in the larval stage it can breathe air or use its
gills in an aquatic environment. It can completely regenerate an
entire limb if cut off. In its natural environment, the axolotl never
actually fulfills its entailed metamorphosis from larval stage to adult stage,
living its entire life in the larval stage. Thus, entailment and causality
diverge in the same species.
My father actually wrote a fictional short story based on this
phenomenon, entitled "What Really Happened To Jeff" or something like that,
where the main character is a college student whose roommate was experimenting
on axolotls and developed a theory that our current human form may just be a
case of arrested development in the larval stage. He figured out how
to trigger it and disappeared without a trace with no clues as to what could
have happened to him (except for the dessicated sea squirt found lying
on the floor of the lab...).
Entailment is what is responsible for side effects; the so called
"hidden variables" or unknown relations within a system being
studied.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 3:23
AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Causality vs.
Entailment
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 -----
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?
> >
>
>
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