LOL. What was the question? :D
On Sep 16, 2009, at 3:26 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
So Miles,
Since you and Eric seem to be in basic agreement, I'd be interested
in your answer to the questions I posed for Eric.
-- Russ
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Miles Parker
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't
know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I
think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff
they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing
it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going
to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people
didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity"
I doubt the activity would have been as engaging.
I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it
is helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent
makes clear, it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything
without some ability to conceptualize things as if they were real,
or certainly to communicate them. On the other hand, the belief that
such things are real has lead to all sorts of mischief -- including
scientific materialism itself, but also see say classical economics.
When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity,
intrinsic organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness,
software usability, threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences,
etc., don't most of them think they are talking about something real?
Put me into the "No" category.
Except that I will say that emergence and complexity might be the
closest thing to something that is "real", i.e. pervasive and
permanent. But I better leave it at that.
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
