Friday, February 25, 2011

logical causal Tao


LOGIC IS A POOR MODEL OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

We use the same words to talk about logical sequences and about sequences of cause and effect. We say "If Euclid's definitions and postulates are accepted, then two triangles having three sides of the one equal to thee sides of the other are equal each to each." And we say, "If the temperature falls below 0°C, then the water begins to become ice."
But the if…then of logic in the syllogism is very different from the if…then of cause and effect.
In a computer, which works by cause and effect, with one transistor, triggering another, the sequences of cause and effect are used to simulate logic. Thirty years ago, we sued to ask: Can a computer simulate all the processes of logic? The answer was yes, but the question was surely wrong. We should have asked: Can logic simulate all sequences of cause and effect? And the answer would have been no.
When the sequences of cause and effect become circular (or more complex than circular), then the description or mapping of those sequences onto timeless logic becomes self-contradictory. Paradoxes are generated that pure logic cannot tolerate. An ordinary buzzer circuit will serve as an example, a single instance of the apparent paradoxes generated in a million cases of homeostasis throughout biology. The buzzer circuit 



is so rigged that current will pass around the circuit when the armature makes contact with the electrode at A. But the passage of current activates the electromagnet that will draw the armature away, breaking the contact at A. The current will then cease to pass around the circuit, the electromagnet will become inactive, and the armature will return to make contact at A and so repeat the cycle.
If we spell out this cycle onto a causal sequence, we get the following:
If contact is made at A, then the magnet is activated.

If the magnet is activated, then contact at A is broken.
If contact at A is broken, then the magnet is inactivated.
If magnet is inactivated, than contact is made.
The sequence is perfectly satisfactory provided it is clearly understood that the if…then junctures are casual. But the bad pun that would move the ifs and thens over into the world of logic will create havoc:
If the contact is made, then the contact is broken.
If P, then not P.

The if…then of causality contains time, but the if…then of logic is timeless. It follows that logic is an incomplete model of causality.

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