79
Essences of Interaction
offered for your consideration and comment. Our challenge is to begin
unraveling the enigmas of integration that brings us systems.
Causality, Mechanisms, and Correlation
A foundational element of scientific investigations and theories is an appreciation of the importance of mechanisms. Mechanisms illustrate the empirical causalities of events. This view of causality suggests that events are
precipitated by mechanisms from which we infer causality. Events are the
results of actions through mechanisms. We term the sequence of events
causality—event by event. Causality is not correlation and correlation is not
causality. Causality is formed from the modal threads of events leading to
the proximate events (nearby in space and time) from which the conditions
are stipulated to select the necessary and sufficient events. Causal events
have both provenance and pertinent specificity. Correlated events have
nexus, without satisfying the three types of causal events required for strict
demands of recognizing cause(s) and effect(s). Correlated events may provide a clue to indicate a causal chain, but correlation by itself fails to identify
key variables that feign causality. This difference between correlated and
causal events suggesting simple probabilistic occurrences is an inadequate
test for causality (Sage and Armstrong 2000).
In all situations, where dense threads and networks of events intertwine,
there may appear to be a limit to one’s ability to identify an adequate test for
causality. This effect of integrated objects (i.e., systems) is suggested in the
social sciences and the natural sciences. Perhaps the difficulty resides in our
inability to identify the event chains leading up to a particularly targeted
event or miss characterizing correlation and causality. We are left again with
determining cause and effect based on probabilistic effects of one object
caused by another object. While this mathematical approach is appealing and
generally reasonable tractable, the question arises—what amount of historical
events are necessary to establish modal causality. Often, there is due attention
to the proximate events and conditional events, but the causal provenance
may be either unknown or quantifiably small. Before the proximate events,
the usefulness of modal causality is to establish the event lineage that leads to
the determination that an event is indeed possible. Were there no detectable
lineage, then one would need to account for and explain spontaneous events.
Spontaneous events would arise from essentially no outside source of EMMI,
only from their internal mechanism(s) within their physical boundaries. We
may be somewhat limited in our appreciation for events that occur without
input EMMI and that limitation we can deal with through a scientific approach
to causality. But even the reliance of one object forming spontaneously
suggests the question—”how” while it is difficult to fathom the notion of a
Essences of Interaction
offered for your consideration and comment. Our challenge is to begin
unraveling the enigmas of integration that brings us systems.
Causality, Mechanisms, and Correlation
A foundational element of scientific investigations and theories is an appreciation of the importance of mechanisms. Mechanisms illustrate the empirical causalities of events. This view of causality suggests that events are
precipitated by mechanisms from which we infer causality. Events are the
results of actions through mechanisms. We term the sequence of events
causality—event by event. Causality is not correlation and correlation is not
causality. Causality is formed from the modal threads of events leading to
the proximate events (nearby in space and time) from which the conditions
are stipulated to select the necessary and sufficient events. Causal events
have both provenance and pertinent specificity. Correlated events have
nexus, without satisfying the three types of causal events required for strict
demands of recognizing cause(s) and effect(s). Correlated events may provide a clue to indicate a causal chain, but correlation by itself fails to identify
key variables that feign causality. This difference between correlated and
causal events suggesting simple probabilistic occurrences is an inadequate
test for causality (Sage and Armstrong 2000).
In all situations, where dense threads and networks of events intertwine,
there may appear to be a limit to one’s ability to identify an adequate test for
causality. This effect of integrated objects (i.e., systems) is suggested in the
social sciences and the natural sciences. Perhaps the difficulty resides in our
inability to identify the event chains leading up to a particularly targeted
event or miss characterizing correlation and causality. We are left again with
determining cause and effect based on probabilistic effects of one object
caused by another object. While this mathematical approach is appealing and
generally reasonable tractable, the question arises—what amount of historical
events are necessary to establish modal causality. Often, there is due attention
to the proximate events and conditional events, but the causal provenance
may be either unknown or quantifiably small. Before the proximate events,
the usefulness of modal causality is to establish the event lineage that leads to
the determination that an event is indeed possible. Were there no detectable
lineage, then one would need to account for and explain spontaneous events.
Spontaneous events would arise from essentially no outside source of EMMI,
only from their internal mechanism(s) within their physical boundaries. We
may be somewhat limited in our appreciation for events that occur without
input EMMI and that limitation we can deal with through a scientific approach
to causality. But even the reliance of one object forming spontaneously
suggests the question—”how” while it is difficult to fathom the notion of a