Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id HAA25666 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:01:35 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 01:05:47 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Logic Message-ID: <3B83056B.30612.95EFF1@localhost> In-reply-to: <003901c12a6b$d77dd5e0$eb25f4d8@teddace> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 21 Aug 2001, at 11:05, Dace wrote:
> From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>
> > Kenneth wrote:
> > > Environmental selection was/is
> > > acted upon us by external agencies, they influence(d) something.
> > > That has always been the tricky part, isn 't it !? Influenced by
> > > what, emotions, environmental constrains and restrains !? Selected
> > > by what
> > > !? Pressures !? Which ones, Joe !? Emotions, constrains and
> > > !restrains
> > >
> > Influenced by CONTIGUOUS (that's touching) environmental
> > situations, ones that are obsevable, describable and measurable, not
> > by some frigging woo-woo seance-master drawing-down-the-mo- -jo
> > astral fantasy line.
>
> What's with this obsession with contiguous causation? Contact
> mechanics disappeared from physics in the 19th century. There's no
> contact mechanics in the orbits of the planets.
>
No complex configurational information passes between them,
either, just gravitational attraction.
>
> There's no contact
> mechanics in the transmission of signals across electromagnetic
> fields.
>
This is untrue; when a radio wave is sent from a transmitter to a
receiver, the causation is continuous, just as when someone
shoots an arrow at a target.
>
> What Sheldrake and Goodwin are trying to do, in their
> different ways, is to bring biology up to date with physics.
>
Biological interactions are much too complex to be profitably
explained in the argot of physics, and the emergent properties of
complex aggregates that occurs in biological systems cannot be
reasonably predicted or represented in physics terms. This is one
of the primary points that Goodwin makes.
>
> Faraday
> was considered a nut until Maxwell came along and proved his theory
> mathematically. Physics has already undergone the painful transition
> to uncertainty and chaos. Unfortunately, biology has been slower to
> adapt to the new, more demanding terrain.
>
Biology is indeed profiting from complexity theory, as Goodwin
shows; but to attempt to slip morphic resonance snake oil in there
is to take a step back into superstion and sympathetic magic, not
to take a step forward into complex adaptive systems theory.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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===============================================================
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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