Contingency Theory of Stephen J. Gould

marti1900

All that stewing did it's work. I think I understand the difference between contingency and randomness. I applied the concept to one of my projects, and I realized that the final project is the result of the step that came before, which was the result of the step before that, which was the result of the step before that. Then I applied the idea of 'rewinding the tape', and I think there is a possiblity of a similar final result of my project, but not exactly the same result. Also there is the possibility of a totally different result.

So now I can think about Goud's ideas with much more clarity.

Marti in Mexico

MadArchitect

misterpessimistic: Is it not possible that the river simply washed branches and mud from a fallen tree down stream and they happened to collect there?

It's possible, just as it's conceivably possibly for a clock to accidentally and spontaneously form in nature without the need for a clockmaker. But the more the dam resembles a beaver dam -- branches with gnawed ends, patted down mud -- the more reasonable it is to assume that it was made by beavers.

Anyway, if such a grand creator was so meticulous in creating our ultra-complex universe, why would that same creator make such an imperfect reality...with pain, death and suffering.

I don't think it's very becoming of you to quibble with a theory that's really only engaging as a sort of Romantic intellectual exercise.

Why would such a perfectionist of a god want nature to be so brutal for the 'lower' order creatures? Why would a lion have to brutally gut a zebra in order to eat?

If you want an answer to that question, you might look at the phenomenon of Medieval beastiaries. Animals are a sort of moral allegory, and their relationships to one another are educational. But to understand the role of the beastiary in a systematic cosmology, theology or iconography, you have to understand the world picture in which they were written -- to which end I would recommend Mâle's "The Gothic Image".

If you want Paley's answer, you'll have to dig him up and ask him, or do some serious research on his theology. I don't know the answer.

If you want the answer, you're out of luck. Presuming that it's part of God's design, God hasn't been very forthcoming with a rationale. And presuming that there is no God, there's still the question of why the terms of existence are such that such a system should arise at all.

CSFilm: Do you not accept evolution (very worried...).

On the whole, yes.

If you do, then what are you arguing against? Do you not accept that Paley's argument was fallacious?

I don't see his argument as anthropomorphic. If beavers, ants, bees, nesting fowl, etc. are capable of structural design, then why should the same capacity in a deity by anthropomorphic? Beyond that, what is unique and startling about the pure conception of God in the traditions of Abraham is that the Creation story is explicitly ex nihilo, /out of nothing/, which puts it pretty far outside the range of human capacity. As finite creatures in a bounded reality, we're ultimately incapable of true creation, only rearrangement. All human creation and imagination is ultimately synthetic.

All I'm arguing is that, if we're going to reject a theory or "proof", let's do it on the proper grounds so that we're not led down the wrong path should similar arguments arise down the road. The problem with Paley's argument is that it treats material reality as a kind of artifact, a claim which the evidence tends to falsify.

CSflim: Take 'Mitochondrial Eve' a single female ancestor shared by everyone of us living today. Had she been struck by lightning (certainly an example of radical contingency) then it is quite clear that the entire chain of ancestors that culminated in modern Homo Sapiens could never have evolved.

Assuming, of course, that Mitochondrial Eve was singular. If, rather, Eve represents a population of mitochondria whose evolution in a particular direction was catalyzed by a more pervasive change in environmental pressures -- geological changes, perhaps, similar to the shift in oxygen levels presumably responsibly for the common red tint found in Triassic rock -- then the death of an individual mitochrondria, or even a relatively small mitochondrial population, might have a limited effect on the possible range of evolutionary possibilities. All of this ranges pretty deeply into the territory of science fiction, and while it's fun to consider the possible ramifications of an alternate prehistory, I'm not sure there's really any way to quantitative or qualitatively guage the contingency of significant past events upon one another. Just as we might say that replaying the tape could result in different ends, we might as easily conceive of how different starting points might have arrived at the same end.

misterpessimistic: Great post! One question: Why would it have to be apes that evolved?

Because no matter what sort of animal they had been, the alternate Homo Sapiens would have called their closest ancestor "apes". Just imagine how odd their alternate version of "Planet of the Apes" would look to us!

Doc Tiessen · Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:26 pm Post subject: Contingency Theory

I had not entered the science threads since a while... I thought there was not much going on here... It has been a very positive suprise that I was wrong...

I enjoyed the discussion very much... and I have done a lot of reading... but I am still confused about one major issue...

What is the difference between contingency and randomness?

I know that some have tried to answer to this... I have even read a lot about Gould... but I am still struggling. Am I a bit retarded? Or why do I have problems in seeing the differences at the deepest level?

Diversity is Good!

MadArchitect · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:18 am Post subject: Re: Contingency Theory

Or why do I have problems in seeing the differences at the deepest level?

Beats me. I'm not really sure where you're having the problem, so I can't even begin to address why. My answer is not Gould's answer (haven't read much Gould), but why don't you look over the posts I've made in this thread and tell me where my argument falls apart for you. Then, maybe, I'll know where to start.

Doc Tiessen · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 3:00 am Post subject: Contingency

MadA,

I had read your explanation, but I was still not very certain. Ok, let me take some points of your post to explain why I have problems.

The key to understanding the difference, I think, lies in placing the emphasis on the scientific process of prediction.

You mean that one is more predictable than the other?

Both randomness and contingency may be unpredictable, but they are unpredictable for different reasons.

You use the word "may"... you mean that they are sometimes and other times not? Or do you want to avoid to be too definitive as to say that they are surely non-predictable? Are they unpredictable to a different degree? Or are they are both equally unpredictable but for different reasons? Which reasons? What is the reason for the unpredictability of randomness? What is the reason for contingency?

Scale plays a very large part in determining whether an event will be predictable or not. Not so with randomness, because random events are not contingent

This is a circular argument. You cannot explain that randomness and contingency are different by saying this in the explanation. Why are random events not contingent?
But ok, you speak of scale. Do you mean that random is at the microscale and contingency is at the macroscale? Could you then say that quantical randomness is the basis of astrophysical contingency? Does contingency not happen at the atomic scale? Is contingency the observable macroscopic result of randomness?

There's a fundamental disconnect between the effect of a random event any anything that might have caused it.

Yes, cause and effect are separated. This is a basic premise of modern science.

Random events are so unpredictable that it seems somewhat misguided to think that we can even anticipate randomness.

Yes, you are right. Single events of randomness are totally unpredictable... but for repeated events of randomness we can start to apply some stochastics... we can make averages, calculate expectations, standard deviation, etc.
Can we apply statistics for repeated events of contingency?

We can only name an event random in retrospect.

I am not sure. I would say that I can also tell that the decay of an atom will be random even it has not happened yet. I could tell that the next meteorite that exterminates 50% of biological diversity will also happen
on a random date.

Observation indicates that most of the events in material reality are contingent.

Does observation indicate that they are not random?

If there are strictly random events then they must take place at a microlevel several stages removed from what is observable to the unaided eye.

Do random events not happen at an observable level? You mean that the unaided eye cannot see randomness?

On the lowest levels, contingency may be predictable, which is why, given a set amount of information, astronomers could predict the collision of the Shoemaker-Levy comet with Jupiter in 1995. The effect was unpredictable only because there were too many factors on which the effect was contingent.

Rolling a pair of dice, we might reflect, is not truly random, but it's contingent on so many factors that it is, in most cases, unpredictable.

You mean that rolling dice is not random but it is contingent? So in theory, we could predict contigent events if we would have very accurate data? Does contingency mean determinism, but ignorance of the causes?

If that is it... then yes, I see the difference... randomness is uncaused... and contingency is caused... it is determinism of which we are unaware...

But then I do not understand many of the explanations of Gould... even if we are ignorant of those causes... there are specific causes... if we would rewind the tape of evolution and let it run again... then the same result should come out. I do not see how a different result can come out just becauseof our ignorance... I cannot see how different outcomes can be generated without randomness.... in fact, that is my favourite definition of randomness... identical conditions lead to different results...

Diversity is Good!

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:24 am Post subject: Re: Contingency

Doc:

Did you read the Shermer article? That helped me a bit. I must say I am confused like you are about the differences, thus my post on the topic. I plan on reading the "Burgess Shale" book by Gould so hopefully that will help.

The way I see it, contingency involves randomness, but whereas randomness is chaos, contingency is patterned chaos...another tautology maybe...

Let me know how this works for you:

A random event occurs, then another event occurs due to that random event and so on. Without that first event, the latter and successive events would not happen. Kind of like a chain of events...the domino theory?

Now, just because that first event caused the second to happen once, rewinding the tape may bring about different contingent events, leading to a different result.

Am I totally off base? I really want to understand this concept and SEE the differences between contingency and randomness, but as of right now, I am only 60% certain of what those differences are.

Mr.P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:43 pm Post subject: Re: Contingency

HTML Comments are not allowed

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:22 am Post subject: Re: Contingency

Mad: ?

HUH? :eek

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect · Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject: Re: Contingency

Apparantly HTML comments are not allowed. S'a shame too, since that was a rather long post, with two particularly nifty examples. But now I remember very little of it, so it's lost forever. Gone... gone...

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:37 pm Post subject: Re: Contingency

OH! You lost a post! I f'in HATE THAT!!!! I lost one today too...I remembered most of it though. It is ALWAYS when I do not copy the text before hitting "post" that my computer screws up. ALWAYS. Drives me mad!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect · Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:27 pm Post subject: Re: Contingency

I had probably actually saved this previous post in the scratchpad I use when I write long posts, but I didn't look back over it in the thread, and ezBoard didn't show an error, so I wrote over it for another post. Ah well. Rest assured that the missing post was the most brilliant thing any of us have ever said.


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