The butterfly effect comes from chaos theory. The word “cause” as used in chaos theory means whether the a change to an initial state from ta to tb of a system from will change a final state fa to final state fb. Human intentional control is irrelevant.
In this comment I use chaos theory’s definition of “cause”.
But can we really say that this impurity “caused” the transition?
Yes.
This seems to depend on the counterfactual world: what would have happened otherwise?
The water wouldn’t have transitioned at that point in time. (Assuming there no other perturbation.)
Would the hurricane have happened if not for the butterfly?
Probably not. (Rounds to zero.)
Do you buy the logic—and the conclusion?
No. You are conflating two different uses of the word “cause”. One is a vague philosophical definition involving human intention. The other is a technical definition derived from mathematics.
You never defined the word “cause”. I think that if you rigorously defined the word “cause” at the beginning of your post then your argument would selfdestruct. Either it would no longer apply to chaos theory or it would no longer apply to your scenarios involving human intentionality.
[Edit: This is overly harsh. See continued discussion.]
Or is this a bit of a straw-man argument, and people don’t really think this way about causes?
A straw-man argument is performed with the wrong intentions. I don’t think your argument is straw-man. Your intentions are fine. Your words are clear, coherent and falsifiable. Your argument is merely wrong.
[Edit: This is overly harsh. See continued discussion.]
Cool—thanks for your feedback! I agree that I could be more rigorous with my terminology. Nonetheless, I do think I have a rigorous argument underneath all this—even if it didn’t come across. Let me try to clarify:
I did not mean to refer to human intentionality anywhere here. I was specifically trying to argue that the “chaos-theory definition of causality” you give, while great in idealized deterministic systems, is inadequate in complex messy “real world.” Instead, the rigorous definition I prefer is the counter-factual information theoretic one, developed by Judea Pearl, and which I here tried to outline in layman’s terms. This definition is entirely ill-posed in a deterministic chaotic system, but will work as soon as we have any stochasticity (from whatever source).
Does this address your point at all, or am I off-base?
You do address my point. This comment helped too. I think I understand better what you’re getting at now. I think you are trying to explain how attempting to trace causation back with the precision of chaos theory is impossible in complex real world situations of limited information and that an alternative definition of causation is necessary to handle such contexts. Such contexts constitute the majority of practical experience.
I no longer believe your argument would selfdestruct if you included a rigorous definition of causality. I understand now that your argument does not depend on human intentionality. Neither is it wrong.
Let us ignore quantum indeterminacy.
The butterfly effect comes from chaos theory. The word “cause” as used in chaos theory means whether the a change to an initial state from ta to tb of a system from will change a final state fa to final state fb. Human intentional control is irrelevant.
In this comment I use chaos theory’s definition of “cause”.
Yes.
The water wouldn’t have transitioned at that point in time. (Assuming there no other perturbation.)
Probably not. (Rounds to zero.)
No. You are conflating two different uses of the word “cause”. One is a vague philosophical definition involving human intention. The other is a technical definition derived from mathematics.
You never defined the word “cause”. I think that if you rigorously defined the word “cause” at the beginning of your post then your argument would selfdestruct. Either it would no longer apply to chaos theory or it would no longer apply to your scenarios involving human intentionality.
[Edit: This is overly harsh. See continued discussion.]
A straw-man argument is performed with the wrong intentions. I don’t think your argument is straw-man. Your intentions are fine. Your words are clear, coherent and falsifiable. Your argument is merely wrong.
[Edit: This is overly harsh. See continued discussion.]
Cool—thanks for your feedback! I agree that I could be more rigorous with my terminology. Nonetheless, I do think I have a rigorous argument underneath all this—even if it didn’t come across. Let me try to clarify:
I did not mean to refer to human intentionality anywhere here. I was specifically trying to argue that the “chaos-theory definition of causality” you give, while great in idealized deterministic systems, is inadequate in complex messy “real world.” Instead, the rigorous definition I prefer is the counter-factual information theoretic one, developed by Judea Pearl, and which I here tried to outline in layman’s terms. This definition is entirely ill-posed in a deterministic chaotic system, but will work as soon as we have any stochasticity (from whatever source).
Does this address your point at all, or am I off-base?
You do address my point. This comment helped too. I think I understand better what you’re getting at now. I think you are trying to explain how attempting to trace causation back with the precision of chaos theory is impossible in complex real world situations of limited information and that an alternative definition of causation is necessary to handle such contexts. Such contexts constitute the majority of practical experience.
I no longer believe your argument would selfdestruct if you included a rigorous definition of causality. I understand now that your argument does not depend on human intentionality. Neither is it wrong.
whow, some Bayesian updating there—impressive! :)