Tara Athan inquired:
[TA] > In this thread, there is a position being defended that it is useful
to
> consider a concept that includes both physical and social laws. One of
> the arguments supporting this position is that there is a continuum of
> laws between the physical and the social. This argument would be more
> convincing if the missing link were produced: can we give an example of
> a law whose consequences are produced by both physical and social means? (01)
The thread does discuss the relation between those laws, but I don't think
anyone argued that it is actually *useful* (i.e. has a practical utility) to
lump them together. Nevertheless, in COSMO, I find it *convenient* (with no
discernable utility other than compactness of representation) to include
both physical and social rules under a single category of "Rule", which is a
"Proposition" created by an "IntelligentAgent". The big difference is that
the "IntelligentAgent" that created the "LawOfNature" in COSMO is not a
human, but the individual "MotherNature" which is a placeholder for whatever
entity created the physical universe, be it some kind of God, or some
super-complex super-intelligent agent doing logical experiments in some
metauniverse, or just random chance working on a substrate we can only
vaguely imagine at this point. And the critical consequence is that humans
can change human rules, but can't change any "LawOfNature", so they are very
different things. For human Rules and their subtype, "Laws", there must be
an "Authority" that creates the rule and can enforce it by causing some
negative consequence for infraction. As others point out, breaking a human
Rule merely makes on *liable* for some punishment, but does not guarantee
punishment. Even so, in COSMO, "liability for punishment" is itself
considered as a "negative consequence", so that *any* infraction of a Rule
will have at least that kind of negative consequence, and possibly worse.
The type of negative consequence depends on the type of rule. Breaking a
parent's rule may get one a time out or a whack on the behind. (02)
One may for some purposes consider the "laws of nature" in possible worlds,
such as virtual reality programs, to be of the same category as the "Laws of
Nature" of our real world, but in that case, it will be some human that
created those laws. I haven't tried representing those in COSMO yet, there
are still more basic matters to attend to. (03)
The relation between humans and Laws of Nature is that humans try to
*discover* the Laws of Nature, and may form theories about what those Laws
of Nature are. But the theory is not itself a Law of Nature, just a more or
less well-informed guess about the actual Law of Nature. (04)
I haven't found any reason to include the notion that a human law makes a
"prediction". The only "prediction" I can imagine is that someone *may* be
punished for infraction. But as we know, even innocent people are punished
by error, so I prefer merely to assert that infraction creates a *liability*
for punishment, or more accurately, *increases* one's liability for
punishment. (05)
Pat (06)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA Inc.
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
908-561-3416 (07)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tara Athan
Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2013 10:00 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Laws: physical and social (08)
In this thread, there is a position being defended that it is useful to
consider a concept that includes both physical and social laws. One of
the arguments supporting this position is that there is a continuum of
laws between the physical and the social. This argument would be more
convincing if the missing link were produced: can we give an example of
a law whose consequences are produced by both physical and social means? (09)
One example I can think of is certain cases of the parenting technique
of "logical consequences", such as a child having to clean up a mess
s/he makes, or repair something that was damaged. (010)
Such consequences also occur in commerce - if a contractor builds a road
that is substandard, they may be required to repair it at their own
cost. That cost is not set by a court, but is determined by the physical
situation - the nature and extent of the road defects relative to the
specifications. (011)
In these cases, the natural, physical consequences are inflicted upon
secondary parties, so the social system (parents or legal system)
intervenes to minimize the secondary impact and transfer it back to the
primary actor. (012)
Certain fields, for example ecological economics, study similar problems
at a macroeconomic level. (013)
Tara (014)
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