On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Certainly, the failure of the Biosphere experiment is evidence in your favor. > There, the scientists failed to predict basic high-level properties of > a pretty simple > closed ecosystem, based on their knowledge of the parts.
Indeed, naturally so. For that matter, we've been building aeroplanes for a century now, and we still need to test new designs in wind tunnel simulations. But Biosphere 2 almost worked, impressively so given that it was the first attempt, and the species were a large and complicated mixture from a bunch of different ecologies; based on the information successfully gathered by the experiment, a Biosphere 3 probably would work. I think that's strong evidence that, even though complexity is of course the norm, we still can successfully engineer complex systems, as long as we accept a certain amount of trial and error is part of the process. ------------------------------------------- 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=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
