chuck,

you are making the mistake to believe that the whole world IS causal. if
you believe that, there is no space for alternative constructions. i prefer
to see causality as one of many causal explanations. sometimes they work
and sometimes they do.

human communication is one example where it doesn't work -- not that there
are causal phenomena involved, such as when i send you an electronic signal
and you get it -- but finding the signal on your computer screen does not
say anything about what you will do with it. in fact, your cause and effect
conception is a better predictor of what you will say in reply. as prove
read this exchange:

you say: Well, this is interesting.
Klaus said: i have no idea what a semantic effect could be.
you say: Why communicate if there is no semantic effect?

here you are constructing an effect just because you privilege the
cause-effect constructions. i meant what i said, i have no idea what a
semantic effect is and in the communication literature i have never heard
that term. long time ago, some communication researchers pursued
cause-effect explanations by proposing what is now called the "hypodermic
needle model" of communication. it failed miserably

you ask: How do you define change? Say in the oxidation of iron or what
makes people
grow up, etc.? I think you may have to use a few verbs.

i'd say, when i am observing something at two points in time and notice a
difference. my "observing" is the verb you are requesting. i should like
to add that i wouldn't know of any change if i would not observe. i must
have a concept of what is same and what is different for change to be
evident. it cannot be noticed without such conceptions and we cannot say
anything of its existence independent of our bodily involvement as
observers. in these two cases, i can explain my observation by what is
called "natural laws" which do not need to take my own interference
(actions) into account.

you cite: Klaus said: "how could abstractions be the cause of anything --
without an actor?
and say: Right! add the activity and you can get change caused by an
abstraction.

this is again an example of imposing cause-effect constructions on something
that is clearly not. abstractions are conceptual, often created in
language. they explain in simpler terms what is otherwise concrete or
detailed. they are not a consequence of what they have been abstracted from
nor can they cause what they have been abstracted from. causality just does
not work here. i am far from denying that often (but not always) a
designer's ideas lead to a product. i am claiming that thinking is not a
causal consequence of what one is thinking about. it is being creative with
what one sees.

you cite: Klaus said: "feelings simply are. they don't tell you what to do.
they cannot explain what you do."
and assert: I disagree: I believe that feelings (including intuitions)
decisively guide
our thoughts and actions and contribute to its explanation. Don Norman put
it nicely: ³Emotions are inseparable from and a necessary part of cognition.
Everything we do, everything we think is tinged with emotion, much of it
subconscious. In turn, our emotions change the way we think, and serve as
constant guides to appropriate behaviorŠ²

i'd say that inseparability is not the same as causality. as norman says
"emotions are inseparable ... from cognition" which in my reading means that
cognition is an embodied phenomenon. the medium in which cognition operates
has much to do with what cognition is doing but it does not determine its
direction.

you cite: Klaus quoting Dawkins: "i believe, but cannot prove, that all
life, all
intelligence, all creativity and all "design" (his quotation marks) anywhere
in the universe,is the direct or indirect product of darwinian natural
selection. It follows that design comes later in the universe, after a
period of darvinian evolution. design cannot precede evolution and
therefore cannot underlie the universe."

and: Klaus said: "note that he does not use the concept of causation. the
producer-product relationship, which he invokes, is a explanatory structure
that does not fit into causal explanations"

leading to the question/assertion: Are you saying that evolution is not
causal? Also the most telling words in
Dawkins last sentence are "cannot precede". As humans we design with what
evolution has "caused" and nurture those gifts throughout our experience in
this world. I'm with Dawkins all the way - there is no master designer or
"ultimate actor"- but there are causes.

here we go again. "but there are causes" is an assertion that commits you a
fundamental belief in a causal ontology. dawkins knows well not to claim
that. he deals appropriately with differences in explanatory frameworks.
causation is a theory. evolution is a theory. i read him to say that
causal explanations are superseded by evolutionary theories, which in turn
are superseded by what could explain design. i found that very interesting

you ask: Also, since when does the producer-product relationship not fit
into causal explanations?

i can't since when we know that, but i can cite a colleague of mine, russel
ackoff, who made that point in conjunction with management, or humberto
maturana, who as a biologist, developed autopoiesis as a theory of the
living and there are numerous theorists between the two extremes.

i should have mentioned maturana when i wrote about observation as not
causally related to what is (believed to be) in front of your eye

this response is too long, i know.
my claiming that "causal explanations are not the only ones around and
particularly inadequate to explain processes of design" was apparently not
convincing. the very fact that i could not cause chuck to be convinced
demonstrates my claim that causal explanations are inadequate in the domain
we are operating.

klaus