John
Forgive what is going to seem like an odd response. I keep wanting people to
give me an account in terms of FORCES. So, it is not for me, who is seeking
advice on an explanation, to dictate what SORT of an explanation is
satisfactory. However, explanations like the the one you kindly offered seem
to my warped mind to be almost circular: a triangle is strong because it has
no choice but to be strong.
The reason I am pondering this is because, remember, of its connection to
emergence. What is the relationship between teh strength of a triangle and the
strength of its parts. Well, on our example, a triangle made out of weak wood
and weak bolts is a weak triangle. Thus, the strength of a triangle supervenes
upon the strength of its components.
But surely we cannot reduce the strength of a triangle to the strength of its
parts because the strength of a triangle depends on the ARRANGEMENT of those
parts. And arrangement is not a property of any of the parts.
[sigh]
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: John Sadd
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 6/7/2009 5:37:06 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] quick question
I would think they would use the language of mathematics, and I'm not sure how
it would contribute to an understanding of emergence. Others whose knowledge of
geometry is fresher than mine could explain it better, but basically, once the
length of the sides of a triangle is fixed, by driving a nail or a bolt through
the corners, for instance, then there is only one set of internal angles that
are possible for those lengths, so the shape of the triangle can't be changed
without breaking the connections at the corners. For a quadrilateral, though,
the size of pairs of internal angles can be changed so that as one angle grows
larger, the adjacent one grows smaller, preserving the total of 360 degrees;
therefore a quadrilateral can be smushed (technical term) as long as the
connections at the corners can be made to flex, without having to change the
lengths of the sides.
js
On Jun 6, 2009, at 11:57 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
On a recent friday, as part of my worrying about emergence, I was trying to
find out what sort of language wise people use when they explain the greater
resistance of triangles to compression. it seemed to me that that example
provided all the complexity we needed for a thorough-going discussion of
emergence. So if I could learn how wise people talked about it, perhaps I
could learn how to talk about emergence in general.
In what field, I wonder, do they discuss the greater strength of some
configurations of members vis -a vis others. SOMEBODY offered me the answer to
that question, but I have forgotten what the answer was. Some sort of
mechanics .... elementary? Can anybody remember or provide the information
again? Why are triangles strong?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
