[Hans Blom, 950620]
(Bill Powers (950618.1430 MDT))
I've been watching the U.S. Open golf tournament on TV. ... So
what selects the club? The consequence of drifting in the wind or
falling short, or THE PLAYER? I contend that it is the player who
does the selecting ...
Watch out, this is a rat's nest. The Test will not be able to give an
answer if there is a perfect correlation between "drifting in the
wind" and the action of "the player". The hard sciences, including
The Test, do not talk about what is "cause" and what is "effect".
Physics, particularly, talks about (cor)relations only. In a formula
such as F = m*a, there is a well-defined relationship between F and
a, but the formula does not say which of the two is the "cause" of
the other.
Discussions about "causes" and "effects" can be found in philosophy,
but not with well-defined results. The best recent approach to this
theme may be the sub-field of psychology called attribution theory.
Here, the concept "cause" is considered to be a human-assigned
attribute, that may differ from individual to individual depending
upon his/her world-model.
Thus, when we talk about something being the "cause" of something
else, we are necessarily subjective. We may not THINK that we are,
because we may not know that different positions exist, for instance
when a whole culture -- e.g. the scientific community -- has the same
opinion and we have never looked outside that culture.
As an example, consider the African rain dance. Where it is practic-
ed, the dance -- if performed for a long enough period, i.e. until it
rains -- is considered to be the cause of the subsequent rain. Per-
fect logic. Our bias would be to reverse cause and effect: the dance
_stops_ because it starts to rain. Perfect logic as well.
... using a process of selection that lies in the player and not
in the ball. ... The behavior of a golf ball is just not the sort
of thing that can "select."
Why not? If the player is perfect (his world-model has fully con-
verged), and even if he is not, he is purely REACTIVE: the (per-
ception of the) environment dictates what he is going to do. Causa-
lity is "circular".
... The ball has no preference for how it will behave ...
Depending upon your perspective. One could also say that the proper-
ties of the ball (mass, surface shape, texture) determine its behav-
ior. As Aristotle would say, a ball "desires" the center of the
earth. In the case of a golf ball, you accept determinism. In organ-
isms, you do not. I wonder why. Is it because we (think we) know the
laws that govern the behavior of a ball, and not the laws that govern
the behavior of an organism?
... mechanism for making estimates or choosing on that basis;
only the player can have such a preference, or draw conclusions
from present-time data.
I think that you confuse map and territory. Concepts like "choice",
"preference", "conclusion" and "data" may be helpful in some con-
texts, but here they are confusing. A player does not "choose"
between different possibilities -- there is only one way in which he
will act. The behavior of a controller -- and we assume that an
organism is one -- is as much determined by its (perceptions of the)
environment as the environment is by the actions of the controller.
The behavior of a controller is determined by its internal mechan-
isms, the environment by the "laws of nature". But internal mechan-
isms are also determined by the laws of nature...
Extreme determinism, I know. But a modeller can take no different
stance, I think.
Greetings,
Hans