Peter MolemanJun 28, 2024
One major issue is that Laplace’s demon cannot exist within our universe. For it to have complete knowledge of all particles, it must be outside the world, looking in. Otherwise, some particles always remain unobserved, unmeasured, because they are what is doing the measuring — they are the demon. They are what is doing the observing. Therefore, Laplace’s beast cannot be a natural being. It is not made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. It is supernatural: much more like a god than any imaginable real investigator who must study the world while being an intrinsic (and generally quite tiny) part of it.
Show threadcausalmechanicsJun 30, 2024

@MolemanPeter

Right? -- tho, isn't this line of reasoning already a paradox?

1. Participation: a. in what way might something which is not-our-universe participate in it?

b. Mustn't the demon be part of the universe to observe/ measure/ change it? -- what of the boundary?

2. Coherence: which reference frame captures all?

3. Representation: how to mentally-represent all characteristics of every phenomena?

4. Consequence: & without destroying everything!

Is Laplace describing our universe?

Show threadPeter MolemanJun 30, 2024
@causalmechanics
Did you read the chapter by @yoginho ?
Show threadcausalmechanicsJun 30, 2024

@MolemanPeter @yoginho

You're right Peter -- some, not all initially

I've encountered yogi's (at times hateful) rhetoric before, so did not feel compelled -- but I ought to have done before responding. That's on me

This piece has many interesting referenced ideas (a few of which I redundantly echoed, sigh) -- but also problematic word-play, false equivalences, and conclusions (which the book may address)

2.

Show threadcausalmechanicsJun 30, 2024

@MolemanPeter @yoginho

Yogi, the dehumanisation of mechanics/ machine is just daft. We are machines -- why suggest machines are inhuman?

Did a cuddle lose all humanity for you because we describe the body in terms of biomechanics? (btw, did related healthcare improve or decline at the same time?)

In fact, we suffer most in areas of healthcare devoid of mechanistic account -- mental health in particular. It's totally fine to think other accounts also useful -- but deny the conversation?!

3.

Show threadPeter MolemanJun 30, 2024
@causalmechanics @yoginho @causalmechanics @yoginho "In fact, we suffer most in areas of healthcare devoid of mechanistic account -- mental health in particular.": I would not agree with "suffer most", and in mental health care mechanistic thinking does (and has done) quite al lot of damage.
Read Practicing Psychiatry in the Third Space, Guest Post by Helene Speyer [cited 2024 Jun 30]; Available from: https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/practicing-psychiatry-in-the-third?post_id=146088836&r=16nd63
The problem with mechanistic thinking, is well explained by @yoginho. Read also Hofstadter, Foreword to the New Edition about the brain being a machine.
( of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid), 2020.
"We now understand that the human mind is fundamentally not a logic engine but an analogy engine, a learning engine, a guessing engine, an esthetics-driven engine, a self-correcting engine." But he thinks that such an engine (!) could be simulated in an computer.
Practicing Psychiatry in the Third Space

Guest Post by Helene Speyer

Psychiatry at the Margins
Show threadcausalmechanicsJun 30, 2024

@MolemanPeter @yoginho

Thanks, I'll read shortly. But to be clear "some mechanistic models aren't good" isn't a good argument against all; any more than "some abstractions aren't good ones" ought to render abstraction off limits

I love surfaces & essences – Hof couldn't fit more in, but he falls short around the edges

Analogy is "the logic of composed/ composable forms". Arguments like fuzzy-matching isn't mechanistic/ logic/ computational are odd

1.

Show threadcausalmechanics

@MolemanPeter @yoginho

We use similar methods in software, logic based on type signatures of interfaces – which are like essences, distinct-from though inherently related to implementation (surfaces); whereby an interface might match plural implementations, as an essence does surfaces

(Really any heuristic-based constituent/partial/fragment pattern-matching)

Any stand-out points you might share on Hofs later treatment of analogy?

2.

Jun 30, 2024 at 2:54pmWeb
Show threadcausalmechanicsJun 30, 2024

@MolemanPeter @yoginho

https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/practicing-psychiatry-in-the-third?post_id=146088836&r=16nd63

Wow, what a remarkable article (brave, what a staggering admission re mockery...); & very useful reference for lived experience "reporting" also. Thanks

Personally, I think psychiatry (in present form) is an abomination. I get that drugs are medical/ mechanistic – but the captured circumstances and judgements of the dsm are definitely not

I'm still feeling the effect of reading that article. It's strong

Practicing Psychiatry in the Third Space

Guest Post by Helene Speyer

Psychiatry at the Margins