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Re: Modeling relations and semantics: "Blame" and causality

I've been away from my computer for the past several days, or I would have responded to this post right away. Jamie says some things that I have been thinking for quite a while in it.

Jamie Rose wrote:
I was working this morning
on some books about social-groups attitudes about one
another and enmity over prior events and identified
'wrongs' felt by one group due to the actions of
another. The notion of 'blame', specifically.
So what is 'blame'? Well, it occurred to me that it's
simply our mental proclivity to be 'causalists' by nature,
channelled to account for negative outcomes specifically.

Exactly! All my life, I heard my father say; "It's a causal world, kid." We often discussed the nature of something called "consequences". The fact that there are consequences is the main point-- far more important than any individual consequence (although most of the banes of human experience are really just that). So, the reality that this is a causal world is far more omnipresent and inescapable than "death and taxes"... Even more of an influence on our daily decision making (and even more of a pain sometimes) than gravity... And even more a fact of life than sh#t... In an interactive, relational universe like ours, there is no way to avoid dealing with this truth. Causality happens. (Jeez, I think I've just invented a new bumper sticker!).

"Blame" is an interesting concept: In a causal world, blame is the label for causing certain (generally negative) consequences for others, although it's associated more with deliberately causing those consequences than it is with inadvertently causing them. It's the word used for someone who is not accepting responsibility for those consequences, whether or not the responsibility is actually his/hers or not. Blame is also deeply woven through all religions and it provides the foundations for all human legal ("jurisprudence") systems. I find it interesting that "bearing false witness" is both illegal and breaks one of the Ten Commandments-- both codes of human conduct consider this to be a no-no.

It becomes a much more serious issue when there is no way to know why or how something happened. In such cases, then, ANY plausible set of entailments people cobble together to build a model of causal events of the past can wind up being accepted as pointing the way TO BLAME. In fact, the word "blame" has become all mixed up with "responsibility" and "causality" and is used interchangeably. That's a mistake, in my opinion. Nowhere more so than in science. Science has become entirely caught up with approaching causality the same way investigators study a crime. However, in legal systems, there is the notion of "proximate cause" whereas in science, this idea is so far only a side issue in chemical analysis. The legal side has more wisdom and insight into causality, methinks. But... they tend to ruin it by using reductionistic science to base the notion of blame on. A wider scientific paradigm, based on relational as well as reductionist concepts would have spin-off benefits in many other fields, and jurisprudence is one of them.

Jamie Rose wrote:
If we engage in this thinking by automatic re-inforcement
every day, and analysis in general to include good-results
(which we tend to gloss over, accept and comfortably ignore),
then it stands as apparent that effective analysis depends upon
timely reaching of assessment in order to .. stay alive, or
maintain some safe status quo.

It seems to me that "blame" is one side of a two-headed coin. The other side is "justice". They are often associated with one another and it is assumed that justice can't be had unless blame is apportioned (and punishment is meted out). But sometimes it seems to me that too many focus on a need to "blame SOMEBODY" even if the person who seems to fit the accepted set of entailments (the model of reconstructed causality explaining the consequences under review) is not the one who is responsible for those consequences. I also think far too many people focus on the punishment aspect, turning the entire system into a gladiatorial type of "reality TV" show, with justice as the main casualty. It disgusts me! Humanity at our worst. I don't watch the news much anymore because I can't stand the way horrific crimes are marketed and, thereby, glorified. Yuck.

These are all issues that have been part of my mental landscape for what seems like forever. But it has become especially acute and all-consuming since my youngest daughter was born six years ago with medical issues and physical handicaps-- due to a malformed placenta that no one can explain the reason for. "Just a freak of nature," they tell me. "Like being struck by lightning." They ruled out everything they know about, so what's left is....??? A shrug. But, being the relational causality girl that I am, I can't leave it alone. I've had to muddle through it all without the world's leading expert on relational causality, too, because my father died about five months before Kyrie' was born. I sure could use his help, because I don't think my own vision is entirely clear on this one. Maternal "instinct" is too powerful for dispassionate consideration.

One of the causality/blame related issues that infuriates me beyond all reason is the constant harping I've heard from religious people who react to the situation with Kyrie' by saying that "Everything happens for a reason. God has a plan." What a machiavellian monster that line of reasoning makes God out to be! To suggest that if the ends are good enough they can justify ANY means-- even the pain and suffering of an innocent baby. Sick! And, just how good is good "enough"?!

I much prefer Robert Rosen's view of causality in this universe, where there is no malice and, therefore, no blame. I just need to fit my thought process with a great big "black hole" that is an unanswered, unanswerable question.

Judith






Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Dec 5, 2005, at 10:27 AM, James N Rose wrote:

With the list's indulgence, I was working this morning
on some books about social-groups attitudes about one
another and enmity over prior events and identified
'wrongs' felt by one group due to the actions of
another. The notion of 'blame', specifically.

And it dawned on me that every one - to a fault -
indulges in 'blaming' as a way of concept-coping
with life and experiences. Adults, children, everyone
does it.

So what is 'blame'? Well, it occurred to me that it's
simply our mental proclivity to be 'causalists' by nature,
channelled to account for negative outcomes specifically.

If we engage in this thinking by automatic re-inforcement
every day, and analysis in general to include good-results
(which we tend to gloss over, accept and comfortably ignore),
then it stands as apparent that effective analysis depends upon
timely reaching of assessment in order to .. stay alive, or
maintain some safe status quo.

In other animals the perceive-evaluate-react net of awareness/
behaving, is a crucial causal-analysis chaining as well.


How challenging then is it to break from "tangible"
specifiable-causality concept processing, and accept
indefinite but as or more important, indefinite
nebulous relations as the more important ones.

:-) ???!!

-again ... till later ...

Jamie