@dcm @uh @SylviaFysica 2/2 it might well be that such effects are well-described as structuring caused. But there‘s a ‚gap‘ in my metaphysical/ontological intuitions whereby I know them to be explanatorily indispensable for explaining behaviour, but have no deep view on how ‚real‘ they are or how they fit into a metaphysical picture (could be: as real as other causes, less real, it‘s all epiphenomenal bar the fundamental level GoL style)….
@dcm @uh @SylviaFysica I suspect if one concludes recursion can introduce sensitivity to patterns in ways that makes them ‚more real‘, one would have -by virtue of that- both some kind of emergence and cross-level causal effects… but I haven‘t got that far…
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica I don't think those things need go that way. One can recognise patterns and non-fundamental kinds as real and causally efficacious (tables, organisms, trains, etc) and think that they are realized without remainder by lower-level stuff. Only very strong versions of reductionism, currently rather unpopular, would deny that.
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica I don't think those things need go that way. One can recognise patterns and non-fundamental kinds as real and causally efficacious (tables, organisms, trains, etc) and think that they are realized without remainder by lower-level stuff. Only very strong versions of reductionism, currently rather unpopular, would deny that.
@dcm @uh @SylviaFysica is saying they are „realised without remainder by lower level stuff“ the same as saying that ‘system rules’ at the fundamental level suffice? I thought it is the opposite: to be non-reductionist is to believe that higher level laws do not follow from component parts and lower level laws. But then I have both the problem of how higher level laws are even possible and what impact they can have on lower level ‘stuff’, no?
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica it just means that the high level laws are realised by lower level ones, but there is no type-type mapping. So high level laws cannot be reduced to lower level ones, but the former are token realised by complex conjunctions of the latter. That does mean though that there can be no top-down causation.
so the big question is what gives rise to the high-level laws as types, right? This is where the notion of constraint seems potentially essential and missing from that standard non-reductionist picture since constraints are (metaphysically) neither 'objects' nor laws ('rules')?
and we would want to distinguish as different two metaphysical pictures: one where constraints constrain the fundamental level objects and another where the constrain higher level types qua type?
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica yes, that sounds like a great way of putting it. In my neck of the woods, the high level types are typically taken as being chiefly a matter of epistemic fruitfulness, generalisation power, etc (which + scientific realist commitments leads to seeing them as real too). Constraints I think definitely count as candidate posits with the required epistemic virtues in this regard.
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica but then constraints are on a par with generalisations, laws, causal relations, etc, not something more basic.
I wouldn't say discussion of constraints is missing from this literature (see eg. the Bechtel paper on constraints and mechanisms, and the DST work), but it's not the main focus in much of mainstream phil of science at any rate.
@UlrikeHahn @uh @SylviaFysica but then constraints are on a par with generalisations, laws, causal relations, etc, not something more basic.
I wouldn't say discussion of constraints is missing from this literature (see eg. the Bechtel paper on constraints and mechanisms, and the DST work), but it's not the main focus in much of mainstream phil of science at any rate.
thanks this is really helpful! setting aside that (from my brief forays in to philosophy) it seems we don't really have a consensual, worked out, notion of either 'law' or 'cause', I think what our exchanges are slowly clarifying for me is that I feel like there is a lack of sharpness in my understanding of the metaphysical picture of the standard non-reductionist view we're (I think) talking about: If one takes the GoL metaphor seriously then there are 1/2
thanks this is really helpful! setting aside that (from my brief forays in to philosophy) it seems we don't really have a consensual, worked out, notion of either 'law' or 'cause', I think what our exchanges are slowly clarifying for me is that I feel like there is a lack of sharpness in my understanding of the metaphysical picture of the standard non-reductionist view we're (I think) talking about: If one takes the GoL metaphor seriously then there are 1/2
@dcm @uh @SylviaFysica
2/3 2 types of "laws"- the fundamental rules of the game which are priviliged in being 'real' and high-level generalisations or regularities ('gliders are destroyed by impact with blinkers') that are true generalisations between, in some sense, epiphenomenal high-level 'patterns' ('glider' etc).
Our causal machinery isn't terribly helpful in distinguishing these, because -from a counterfactual perspective- 'the blinker caused the destruction of the glider' works
@dcm @uh @SylviaFysica
2/3 2 types of "laws"- the fundamental rules of the game which are priviliged in being 'real' and high-level generalisations or regularities ('gliders are destroyed by impact with blinkers') that are true generalisations between, in some sense, epiphenomenal high-level 'patterns' ('glider' etc).
Our causal machinery isn't terribly helpful in distinguishing these, because -from a counterfactual perspective- 'the blinker caused the destruction of the glider' works
3/3 but I think (as per my potential example of the GoL paper with different timing constraints), constraints could genuinely affect how the system turns out (thus seeming 'causal' in a sense) by impacting how the fundamental rules unfold, while being neither 'objects' nor fundamental rules not high-level laws/generalisations. And that, to me, would indicate a stronger role than just some kind of epistemic utility in the non-reductive picture
3/3 but I think (as per my potential example of the GoL paper with different timing constraints), constraints could genuinely affect how the system turns out (thus seeming 'causal' in a sense) by impacting how the fundamental rules unfold, while being neither 'objects' nor fundamental rules not high-level laws/generalisations. And that, to me, would indicate a stronger role than just some kind of epistemic utility in the non-reductive picture
