Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA27047 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 16:54:45 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 16:24:12 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <391A8056.16E6856F@mediaone.net> Message-Id: <00051116333706.00619@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
>
>I believe that it is chaos theory says that complexity by itself generates
>some indeterminancy
No, it doesn't. "Chaos", in the modern, mathematical sense, refers to
phenomena that are entirely deterministic.
>that you can't predict the exact location of every molecule in a gas, only
>the net effect of the group as a whole. Perhaps that is where the notion of
>accident and improbable events fits in?
You are probably thinking of sensitivity to initial conditions, in which
outcomes are unpredictable in non-linear systems because it is not possible to
measure the initial conditions with sufficient accuracy. The uncertainty is
entirely subjective -- it's our problem, not that of the phenomena under
investigation. Similarly, "accident" and "improbability" are, to the best of
my understanding, in our minds and not "out there". If anyone can make a case
to the contrary, I want to hear it, because I've been interested in this stuff
for a long time.
Am I correct in thinking you cannot now support your claim about the
improbability of human evolution? :-)
-- Robin Faichney===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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