Re: Causality vs Entailment

Steve,

Below are some quotes which I think address your question quite directly. I try to quote in full to keep them in context:

"In practice, as we shall see, we tend to require much more of our selves and our universe than natural law. To describe these it is useful to think intuitively about the very concept of law. As we shall see, this is already not an elementary concept and involves several distinct aspects which we shall call entailment and surrogacy respectively. Intuitively the very idea of law embodies a kind of inexorability or necessity. In practice, this tends to boil down to repeatability; speaking roughly, this means that "the same" result ensues from "the same" set of circumstances. Indeed, this repeatability is what we actually mean when we say at least some events occurring in our universe are not entirely whimsical or arbitrary. This was the first condition for natural law itself. It is this kind of necessity which is the essence of entailment. We would say that under such circumstances an outcome is entailed by the circumstances which produce it. It is the discovery of such entailments which constitute the endeavors of science. In the external world, and the strivings of at least logic and mathematics in th esymbolic world, it can be seen that the concept of entailment is manifested by two broad oceans, depending whether we are considering the objective enternal world or the subjective internal one. The study of entailment in the external world constitutes causality, in the internal world the corresponding study constitutes inference." [RC p. 89, underline orig.]

"We recall that mathematics itself belongs to the realm of symbolic systems, which is itself a part of the class of languages. As such, mathematics is subject to that brand of entailment known as inferential entailment. Moreover, as we have seen, the proposition of language may be considered either entirely in themselves or as descriptions of what takes place in other realms of system theory. Most particularly, we will be concerned with the natural systems which comprise our external worlds and about which information comes to us through our sensory mechanisms. Natural systems, as we recall, are governed by other modes of entailment which are collectively called causality." [RC p. 92-93]

"In one way or another, the concept of causality dominates our conception of what transpires in the external, public world. In broadest terms, causality comprehends a system of entailments, which relate to events and phenomena occurring therein. The concept itself is due to Aristotle, who associated it with the answers given to the question, "Why?"; indeed, to Aristotle, science itself was the systm atic study of "the why of things," and hence entirely concerned with elucidating such causal relations." [EL p. 84, ital. orig.]

"As far as science is concerned, it is inseperable as a human activity from the belief that the external world, of material events and phenomena, itself comprise a system of entailments. That is, the events and phenomena that we observe and cognize are not entirely arbitrary or whimsical but must satisfy definite relations. Moreover,these relations may be discerned and articulated, and they collectively constitute the province of causality and manifest the system of causal entailments described originally by Aristotle two millenia ago." [EL p. 158, ital. orig.]

So, my view is that the study of entailments in the external world is the study of causality. And if our notions of causality are inadequate, then they need to be revamped/expanded. The Aristotelian categories move us somewhat in that direction, but not far enough. As Judith said in her reply to you, context-dependence and organization both play roles in entailments and in my view, this means we need a more comprehensive understanding of causality so that such things which are not 'material' (in the usual sense) are still included in what we call 'causality', and that accordingly our formalisms for formal models likewise are expanded so that such entailments can be represented in inferential terms. Relational modelling adds a way of formally (i.e., inferentially) representing entailments which relate to organization, and whose counterparts in the external world, in my view, are causal entailments and so fall entirely within the province of 'causality'.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:***]On Behalf Of Steve
> Johnson
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 1:22 AM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: Causality vs Entailment
>
>
> I think I see where the basis for the disagreement
> between Judith and Tim lies. In re-reading Rosen I
> have found that sometimes he uses the word "causal" as
> synonym of "material" or "that which is in the
> ambience" but he never uses the word "causality" and
> "cause" synonymously with "entailment". I think Tim's
> comments are based on the adjectival form. Indeed
> Rosen says on multiple occasions that there are only
> two forms of entailment: causal and inferential. But I
> would venture to say that in the context of this quote
> "causal" has nothing to do with causality it is simply
> a synonym of "material" or "that which is in the
> ambience". What do you think Tim?
>
> - Steve