Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA27754 (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 19:21:53 +0100 Message-Id: <200005111819.OAA05066@mail3.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 13:23:52 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? In-reply-to: <391AB0E6.77967B03@mediaone.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:08:54 +0100
From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa?
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
> Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
>
> Correct? I don't know. It seems plausible to me that certain events might be so
> rare -- or even unique during a very long time period, that the possibility of
> lining up two or three of these at exactly the right time would be extremely
> unlikely and therefore improbable. If you get either a large complex system or
> even a few smaller interacting complex systems, it seems to me that you could get
> some chance events like that.
>
> Take the fact that the earth is in a line in the solar system which is virtually
> unique in that it does not get many large meteors as do other planets in the
> system (Venus, or is it Jupiter, sucks them in with their gravity field before
> they get here) is an accident allowed the billions of years necessary for the
> development of complex life. Every other planet with roughly our conditions
> couldn't support complex life because meteor showers would stop the development
> too early.
>
> Now it seems to me that you could say that THEORETICALLY we should someday be able
> to understand why the earth is in that particular position if we find out enough
> about the history of the universe. But couldn't one say that for all practical
> purposes, we can treat it as an improbable event?
>
> Or what of the fact that a special echnoniche is needed to start a species, and it
> gets started, but it gets wiped out by another developing predator species before
> it gets a chance to grow in population size. How many chances can a species get to
> develop? How many threats is it under in the area it got a chance to start?
> Intuitively I would say that we could use the word improbable. What do you think?
>
> >
> > Am I correct in thinking you cannot now support your claim about the
> > improbability of human evolution? :-)
> >
One should also teke into account Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle and the necessity of contiguity to causation. Since at the
microphysical level, neither an electron's momentum nor its
position can be bsolutely pinpointed, it becomes impossible to
attribute causation, for the contiguity necessary to it can be neither
ascertained nor assured. This is not even to invoke Popperian
Falsifiability, which states that universal empirical positive truth-
clasims can never be absolutely verified, due the simultaneous
necessity and impossibility of inspecting all cases to be certain
that such rules apply. Since the assertion that "all things are
caused" must include all empirical things as a subset, such an
assertion cannot meet the knowledge test, and must forever remain
an article of faith/belief. Then there is the matter of an empirical
counterexample; positron-electron pairs that pop into and out of
existence spontaneously. It would seem impossible for existence
to reach out of itself into nonexistence (while still remaining part of
existence) to cause such effects; the very idea is hopelssly
logically self-contradictory.
> > --
> > 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
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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