[MD] Chance

[Krimel]

> [Krimel] 
> When we seek after the web that produced a particular result, 
> it is a post hoc analysis. 

[Craig]
Yes, but we sometimes set up initial conditions & perform an 
experiment to find the result. 

[Krimel]
When we set up experiments to determine causality, we explicitly seek to
rule out extraneous variables either by eliminating them are through
processes that seek to randomize their effects on the dependant and
independent variables. This is in fact one of the criticisms of the
experimental method, that it is artificial and does not truly represent what
happens in nature when all the extraneous variables are woven into the nest
of causality.

[Krimel] 
> The notion that the dice chooses to land in a particular way is absurd.
> Every time a six is rolled at different nest of causality is invoked. 

[Craig]
Of course, the notion that the dice chooses to land in a particular way 
is absurd. But nobody claims that. We would only say that "the dice 
chooses to land in a particular way" if the dice AS A WHOLE so chooses. 
But it is not so absurd to say of any of the minutest parts of a die (call 
it X), that it chooses a particular path. That the dice lands in a
particular way is the interaction of all the various paths of Xs.
Consider: 
X chooses to go there 
X prefers to go there 
X values going there 
X is caused to go there 
X goes there because a nest of causality is invoked.
For Pirsig, all these record the same data.  They differ only in their
explanatory power.  Is "X goes there because a nest of causality is invoked"
any better an explanation than "X values going there"?
After all, what invokes the "nest of causality"?  How does it do it?
And why?

[Krimel]
Your first three examples here are exactly what you admit is absurd in your
first sentence. It is what is being claimed. They all imply that the dice is
a conscious agent and can decide for itself which number will come up and
that it could choose otherwise. You are simply making X into the decision
making aspect of the dice. This is no more of an explanation of the dice's
behavior than invoking dice fairies.

The point I have been attempting to make is that there is no single chain of
causality that leads to a particular outcome.