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Phil Henshaw on 01/02/2008 09:25 PM:
> Yes, sure, that's an option of interpretation, but does it fit with
> the rest of what I was saying? I think there's an interpretation
> that fits the data of nature better than any other, so it's reached
> as a 'conclusion' not as an 'assumption'. For example, can you
> offer any example of physical growth (accumulative change) without a
> beginning and end?
Hmmm. I suppose that depends on the way "beginning" and "ending" are
measured. It seems to me that _nothing_ real has a beginning or end.
Our models of things begin and end; but, the things themselves don't
seem to.
For example, I can say that "my dad" was born. Then many years later,
he died. But when did "my dad" begin? Was he "my dad" when he was a
zygote? A fetus? A gleam in my grand dad's eye? Same questions apply
about when he ended. In fact, the difference between an embryo and a
fetus presents just such an example of physical growth without a
beginning or an end. We don't know when the fetus "began" and our
cut-off point for "fetus" is artificially designed to coincide with birth.
The same is true of any unit you can think of. Sure, by measuring the
thing according to some model, you can point to a beginning and end...
according to your _model_. But, is the thing being measured actually
beginning and ending? Or is it just the way you measure it that results
in the measurements?
By that reasoning, I can simply pick a model of the world where nothing
ever ends and nothing ever begins... i.e. a model that says the world is
everywhere continuous. Forces in distant galaxies impact me to some
non-zero extent (though they may be _negligible_ for any given purpose).
Events in the distant past caused me to, say, get some more coffee...
at least to some extent.
So my answer is: Sure. Tell me what model you'd like me to use and I
can pick a growth process that has neither a beginning nor an end.
> Complex systems are always poorly represented by our models, but does
> that restrict them, or just us? :-)
That's easy: Both, because we are part of the super-system that
includes the sub-system being studied.
> Well, certainly a term needs to be understood so that when one
> persons uses it another person can know what is being referred to.
> But isn't that a normal problem with language, not an inherent flaw
> in language? In this case I'm using 'feedback loop' in a way I
> thought would be understood, from your referring to the physical
> model of the 'chicken & egg' cycle. It wasn't that clear perhaps.
It's not that it's unclear. It's that the meaning you're using isn't
concrete. It's abstract. A "feedback loop" cannot be picked up,
manipulated, eaten, twisted into a pretzel, etc. Hence, it is not concrete.
As an abstract thing, all that remains is to figure out whether the
thoughts triggered by others by the phrase "feedback loop" are roughly
equivalent to the thoughts triggered in you when you see the phrase
"feedback loop".
Now, concrete things have a natural mechanism for correcting errors in
the thoughts of those that manipulate them. E.g. if you pick up a rock,
roll it around in your hands, toss it up in the air, drop it on your
foot, etc. Then I pick it up, roll it around, etc. There's a good
chance that equivalent thoughts pop up when we think about that rock.
And we can use the concreteness of the rock to whittle down any
differences by designing standard methods for handling the rock.
But with abstract things like "feedback loop", it's much more difficult.
The only methods for ensuring our thoughts are equivalent when the
phrase is uttered is to talk about it for extended periods, probably
with several conversations (possibly including quizzing each other). We
can also help bring the thoughts closer by indirectly using concrete
artifacts like drawings, computers, etc. ("Point to the feedback loop!" ;-)
I posit that, in most people, the thoughts evoked by "feedback loop" are
going to be very different, primarily because most people don't work
very closely together with most other people. Sure, some people work
closely with some other people. But, by and large, an abstract thing
like a "feedback loop" will mean very different things to different people.
And one of the main differences will be in thinking about the beginning
and the ending of any given feedback loop.
> Can you think of any regular cycle that does not begin and end with
> accumulative processes on scales that make them untraceable?
I don't really understand what you're asking for. Perhaps if you gave
me an example of a regular cycle that has a clear beginning and a clear
ending?
> I draw the conclusion that natural system feedbacks have no efficient
> cause since it's 'inefficient' to have causes separated from
> effects. With growth systems there are usually time lags between
> cause and effect, so any 'cause' is instrumentally disconnected from
> the process that follows it. Growth systems also usually have
> complex emergent properties with a complexity not evident in the
> original environment, and so outside cause fails to be 'efficient'
> for requisite variety too.
>
> In the case of a real physical growth system you'd be quite right to
> say that any feedback loop we can define has us as its efficient
> cause. A physical system's own feedback loops are indeed complex.
> For talking about them it seems you need words that take their
> meaning from what they refer to rather than be defined so they can't.
> That's an issue, of course.
>
> Then I think the best of all evidence is the myriad physical systems
> that hide their designs inside themselves. That's very 'inefficient'
> isn't it, to have things designed and operating according to
> principles that are universally invisible from outside? Isn't that
> typical for physical systems though?
You seem to be using the word "efficient" as it's used in everyday
language rather than as the peculiar meaning it takes on when used in
the phrase "efficient cause". An "efficient cause" need not be
efficient. Such a cause needs only to meet Aristotle's (or Robert
Rosen's) definition of such causes.
>> I'm not saying that any of these are true; but they are certainly
>> defensible positions... as defensible as the assertion that the
>> loops have no efficient cause.
>
> When you talk about 'defensible' but ambiguous positions I'm reminded
> of questions like whether trees falling in the woods make a sound if
> no one hears them. The interest in that question seems to rest
> entirely on the argument for either position being completely
> 'incontrovertible', i.e. defensible by being impossible to
> contradict.
I apologize. That's not how I intend it. When I say something is
defensible or reasonable, I mean that a diligent person can make a
persuasive argument that it's true. The introduction of a contrary fact
can demolish such defensible positions, turning them indefensible. But
absent such contrary facts, the position is defensible. And any given
topic can tolerate several defensible but contradictory positions.
> To me people seem interested in that because it turns on whether the
> universe is composed of information or things. If just information,
> then the unobserved falling tree makes no sound. If you approach the
> world as composed of things, then it does.
Not necessarily. If the whole universe is information, then we
(observers) are information. And if we're information, then other
things (also information) might also be like us. Hence, if a tree falls
in the forest and no human is there but some non-human information
globule with the power to observe is present, then it still makes a sound.
So, even if the world is composed entirely of information, the tree
(information) may make a sound even if no "one" is there to hear it.
For example, even though wood molecules (also information) can't _hear_,
they can certainly react to the physical pressures (also information)
that might result from the falling tree. I.e. the tree, itself, is an
observer or is composed of observers .... even if it's dead.
In short, everything being information doesn't change the answer.
Events can either be sensed by an observer or they can't, regardless of
what the universe is composed of.
> Why anyone would even wonder about that might be
> that our mental pointers to physical things get mazes of
> self-references attached to them, so our thoughts can wander without
> end looking for what's real, and find nothing but themselves to
> connect to. When you strip the interpretations from the pointers,
> they can work again. I find it gives reality great substance, and
> having pointers reliably lead to where there are new things to
> discover very useful.
>
> Do you think Rosen is thinking at all about this issue? It sounds
> like he's looking at an equally central problem of explanation I
> think.
Yes. He explicitly talks about this (meters and observables) in
Fundamentals ... as well as Life Itself. The presentation in
Fundamentals ... is more explicit.
- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're
talking about. -- John Von Neumann
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