As far as I can tell, all you've done is give the irreducibility a name: "statistical mechanics". You haven't explained how the arrow of time emerges from the local level to the global. Or, maybe I just don't understand it... can you dumb it down for me?
Terren --- On Mon, 6/30/08, Lukasz Stafiniak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > By the way, just wanted to point out a beautifully > simple example - perhaps the simplest - of an > irreducibility in complex systems. > > > > Individual molecular interactions are symmetric in > time, they work the same forwards and backwards. Yet > diffusion, which is nothing more than the aggregate of > molecular interactions, is asymmetric. Figure that one out. > > > This is just statistical mechanics. The interesting thing > is that we > make an opportunistic assumption, that any colliding > particles are > independent before collision (this introduces the time > arrow), which > is then empirically "confirmed" by the fact that > derived properties > agree with the "phenomenological" theory of > entropy. > > P.S. The biggest issue that spoiled my joy of reading > "Permutation > City" is that you cannot simulate dynamic systems ( = > solve > numerically differential equations) out-of-order, you need > to know > time "t" to compute time "t+1" (or, > alternatively, you need to know > "t+2"), the same goes for space, I presume you > need to know x-1,x,x+1 > to compute the next-step x. > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: > http://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=106510220-47b225 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
