Judith,
From that page in Essays:
In either case, there are never
enough purely behavioral discrimina-
tors that entail identity.We must go to causality
for that kind of identi-
fication—i.e., into how
behaviors are generated. One immediate con-
clusion is
that we cannot generally argue backward from behaviors alone
to their
causal bases (i.e., analysis and synthesis are not simply inverse
operations [see
chapters 1 and 6]).Behavioral mimesis is at
best only
evidentiary; it has been
argued that inductions from such evidence, like
the Turing Test, have no
basis, since at least the time of Hume. [ital. orig., bold added]
To say that the problem is that it is “a
linear _expression_ and a linear view” is simply a restatement of “analysis
and synthesis are not simply inverse operations”, where “linear”
refers to the synthetic. Since each is not just the inverse of the other, one does
not entail the other.
Regards,
Tim
From: ROSEN Forum
[mailto:*** On Behalf
Of Judith Rosen
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
8:25 AM
To: ***
Subject: Re: Causality vs
Entailment
Tim Gwinn wrote: one cannot
reliably argue backwards from behavior (effects) to causes.[EL p. 123] The
former does not entail the latter.
Tim you're getting into quicksand, here. My father did
not say this the way you are representing it. All of science argues backwards
from effects to causes. The problem is that such an argument is a linear
_expression_ and a linear view. That is precisely what limits
"causality" as a subject for study. The underlying entailment
relations don't follow this linear, timebound form and are, therefore, more
comprehensive.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Gwinn
To: ***
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Causality vs Entailment
Hi Steve,
I think one general point about mimesis Rosen makes is that And an accretion of
behaviors does
generically entail a particular accretion of causes. Analytic models are not
generically the inverse of synthetic models. Thus to create something
which
mimics the behavior of some original system does not entail that the mimic
therefore has the same underlying causal entailment organization - it's
causal basis - as the original system. So mimetic approaches will
generically result in a lack of synonymy of entailment structures between
the two systems.
With respect to simulations, there is again the problem that that there is a
lack of synonymy of entailment structures between the original system and a
simulation of it. In a simulation, all the entailment structures are
collapsed into material cause (i.e., software program) to a simulator (i.e.,
hardware). Additionally, the simulator does not decode into anything in the
original system: it is entirely extraneous to the original system yet
entirely integral on the simulation side.
In both cases, I feel the term 'entailment' is used consistent with the way
he uses the term elsewhere.
Regards,
Tim