3 ms·

The article seemed to me to go back and forth between profound and tendentious. To pin down the ideas precisely, or perhaps to trivialize them, here's a simple

The article seemed to me to go back and forth between profound and tendentious. To pin down the ideas precisely, or perhaps to trivialize them, here's a simple technical + mathematical example: TCP, the congestion control protocol for transmitting data packets on the Internet. Here are some ways to think about TCP: (1) TCP's congestion control is an algorithm. It maintains a variable "congestion window", and it has rules for increasing or decreasing this variable based on the acknowledgement packets that come back. (2) TCP's congestion control is a mechanism that results in the outcome "throughput = sqrt(2) / (RTT * sqrt(p))", where p is the packet drop probability. (3) TCP's congestion control is a system that results in the available capacity of a network being shared between all the active flows. Specifically, it acts so as to maximize a "total utility" function, subject to network capacity constraints [1]. These three levels of description are all true, all at the same time. When you ask "why did TCP give me this much bandwidth?", the 'why' can be answered at any of the three levels, and different levels will be useful for different purposes. Level 3 is close to 'purpose' and level 1 is close to 'cause and effect', but I think those labels get confusing especially when we talk about the intention of the designer. (In the case of TCP, the level 3 purpose-style understanding of TCP only came about in the late 1990s, long after TCP was invented and deployed.) IANA philosopher ... but these levels of explanation go back to Aristotle. I think level 1 is the "efficient cause" (it happened because of an action), level 2 is the "formal cause" (it happened so as to achieve a certain form), level 3 is the "teleological cause" (it happened to achieve a purpose). When I read the article in the light of this three-level picture of TCP, it seems to me that the "purpose" view of a system, which I take to be level 3, is just one of several equally valid views, not more nor less important than the others. [1] https://www.princeton.edu/~chiangm/stochastic_num.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~chiangm/stochastic_num.pdf

beaconstudios 5y ago
That's correct, and I think the author goes too far in implying that the efficient cause is the "wrong" way. I think what they are actually opposing is _linear_ causal thinking; after all, systems thinking is about graduating from linear to nonlinear causal reasoning. Culturally in the West we tend to think of linear modelling as the highest truthful form (see reverence for subjects like physics, though ironically quantum physics moved away from this paradigm to a degree) which is not ideal because only a small number of subjects are amenable to such a model and most are far removed from the arenas in which we act day to day and thus would be well served with accurate models.
- datastoat 5y ago
  I've not heard of nonlinear causal reasoning. It sounds interesting. Could you suggest some reading? (A quick search throws up uninteresting hits about nonlinear models.)
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    [edit] this might be a good starting point: - general overview of complex systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system - nonlinear dynamics (maths-heavy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system it's the underlying topic of study in systems theory in the same way that mathematics is about axiomatic models; you won't see it explicitly mentioned that much unless you go into the more pure, self-referential subdisciplines. cybernetics focuses on things like feedback loops (where cause-and-effect runs in a loop - ie, it is not linear), systems theory works on higher-order patterns based on feedback; it spans out in many different directions (systems theory is extremely transdisciplinary) and there's a lot to it so I'm not sure what specifically I could direct you towards. "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows is the typical recommendation, but I find it very diagram-focused and that's probably the least interesting part about it in my mind.
kybernetikos 5y ago
> When I read the article in the light of this three-level picture of TCP, it seems to me that the "purpose" view of a system, which I take to be level 3, is just one of several equally valid views, not more nor less important than the others. Not only that, but you can make some pretty bad errors of thinking if you try to impose a teleology in situations where there actually isn't one.

beaconstudios 5y ago

That's correct, and I think the author goes too far in implying that the efficient cause is the "wrong" way. I think what they are actually opposing is _linear_ causal thinking; after all, systems thinking is about graduating from linear to nonlinear causal reasoning. Culturally in the West we tend to think of linear modelling as the highest truthful form (see reverence for subjects like physics, though ironically quantum physics moved away from this paradigm to a degree) which is not ideal because only a small number of subjects are amenable to such a model and most are far removed from the arenas in which we act day to day and thus would be well served with accurate models.

datastoat 5y ago
I've not heard of nonlinear causal reasoning. It sounds interesting. Could you suggest some reading? (A quick search throws up uninteresting hits about nonlinear models.)
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  [edit] this might be a good starting point: - general overview of complex systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system - nonlinear dynamics (maths-heavy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system it's the underlying topic of study in systems theory in the same way that mathematics is about axiomatic models; you won't see it explicitly mentioned that much unless you go into the more pure, self-referential subdisciplines. cybernetics focuses on things like feedback loops (where cause-and-effect runs in a loop - ie, it is not linear), systems theory works on higher-order patterns based on feedback; it spans out in many different directions (systems theory is extremely transdisciplinary) and there's a lot to it so I'm not sure what specifically I could direct you towards. "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows is the typical recommendation, but I find it very diagram-focused and that's probably the least interesting part about it in my mind.

kybernetikos 5y ago

> When I read the article in the light of this three-level picture of TCP, it seems to me that the "purpose" view of a system, which I take to be level 3, is just one of several equally valid views, not more nor less important than the others. Not only that, but you can make some pretty bad errors of thinking if you try to impose a teleology in situations where there actually isn't one.