Doug Pensinger wrote, > An optimist -- and I am still an optimist -- will argue that in > spite of forgone opportunities, the USA could help create a more > civilized and sustainable world.
Excellent post, Robert ... Thanks! It grew out of the discussion between Dan Minette and Nick Arnett on various paradigms throughout history. (The initial thread was `Liberal Capitalist Fundamentalism' which became `three paradigm shifts?'.) ... Maybe we can still do all the things you suggest, but it will require a sea change in attitude from where we seem to be right now. That requirement is for sure. But I am hoping that will happen. My optimism depends on changes both on the technical side and on the social or political side. Hence, von Neuman replicators that manufacture, and government that protects and preserves our environment. As for the consequences of the discussion, I am busy with my first science fiction novel. It inspired more writing. (The book is a socioeconomic proposal disguised as an adventure and detective story. It is what I would have liked to have read when I was 13 or 14. Of course, there are problems, big problems. For one, few others have the same interests I do. So its potential audience will be small. I just don't know whether it will be too small. We shall see. And in any case, I am not a story teller. (When the time comes, I will seek critiques, but the book is not there yet.) Besides my immediate problem, which is running out of money -- I was not paid for some work I did earlier, I am wondering whether the fellow has the money (if any of you have renumerative projects I can do, please tell me) -- the discussion and your remarks inspired me to write a thousand words more. Here they are. Filgard is a farmer whom Djem (pronounced in English, `Gem') and Leestel are visiting. On a totally different matter, not on paradigms, are my remarks on cows accurate? As a young child I was a cowherd, but have forgot everything in the years since. ... Filgard stopped pushing and the rock stopped moving. He said, "Aristotle was right. When you stop pushing a rock, the rock stops." This was not what Djem thought when he stopped pushing, but he had to agree, Filgard was right. The farmer kept talking, "Newton came along ... and distinguished between inherent idleness and the retardation you get from rubbing -- he extended the notions as metaphors or maybe he used existing metaphors and made them famous. He called the two concepts inertia and friction. So rocks without friction, like this planet, kept moving; and rocks with friction, like this one here," he patted the rock, "stop." "Aristotle had confounded the two ideas." Filgard looked at Djem, "Aristotle probably had slaves to push the rocks. They would stop whenever they could. They would act dumb and pretend to worry too much. By acting stupid, they could hurt their kidnapper without endangering themselves. "Humph! Acting stupid enabled a slave to be more idle than he would be otherwise. I bet idleness is the part of it that Aristotle noticed. He thought that idleness was a natural state of being. But Newton pointed out that rocks on a planet suffer retardation because they rub against the soil." Filgard kept following his train of thought. "Newton came to distinguish inertia and friction. Newton's Laws are wrong; we know that. Still, his notions are good enough for much interplanetary work. Most of the time, you do not have to employ Einstein's ideas. And Aristotle's Laws, which I doubt anyone thinks of, work fine for pushing stones." Filgard stopped for a moment. "There is much more to it than that," he said. "Newton was articulating a paradigm shift. There were lots of little shifts, but I think he explicated the first big shift since the transition from the pre-agricultural era to pre-industrial agriculture." He stopped for a moment. "In our culture, I think Aristotle explicated the previous paradigm shift, or Plato and Aristotle did, the one idealistic and the other not. I am sure that other agricultural cultures had their own men articulate appropriate paradigms." "What were the characteristics of this paradigm?" Leestel asked. Filgard explained, "Newton put an emphasis on non-living things, like planets as dots in space. Because his equations could, in theory, be calculated exactly, the paradigm favored determinism." He looked at Djem as well as Leestel. "It had definite theological implications. It affected how people interpreted their numinous experiences. "Besides deterministic Calvinism, which preceded Newton by a very long time, his Laws articulated a change in his culture's relationship with its God: omnipotence got limited. The mathematical correlation with reality made God as subject to natural law as humans are to kingly or legislative law. [I don't say it in the draft, but I have heard that for the past 600 or so years, various Muslim theologians have said that their God is omnipotent and unrestrained. Does anyone know whether this is true?] "No one thought this way at the time, but I have to imagine the west European concept of God as a great artificial intelligence. He runs a simulation in which we are a part. When you don't consider Newton, the AI can reprogram the world heedlessly. When you do bear him in mind, a break in the simulation's `consistency rules' makes for a miracle." The farmer smiled. "Incidently, there is no way we can show whether we are or are not living in a simulation: Plank's length, which is really small, does appear to be a characteristic of our universe; that means it is digital, but at a very high resolution. And Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means we cannot measure as precisely as Newton's analogue universe suggests! Filgard surveyed the pond and the land around it. "The rocks should go here." He pointed to three spots. Djem's stone was not far from his spot at all. Leestel's was farthest. After pushing his rock to his spot, Djem helped Leestel. He noticed his was breathing heavily and sweating some, but not painfully. He could not have done this on Earth. "Returning to Newton ..." Filgard was obviously intent on continuing, "what happens to apples, planets, and the like, his rules for gravity, are invisible directly. You have to observe and record the skies. You cannot simply see. "Many years after him, other invisibilities became important, like fast non-living machines that could be understood only when slowed. When slowed, and with the right mind-set, you could see how they worked. Direct human observation succeeds some of the time. But at other times you can only imagine. You need to pretend that invisible electric currents flow in certain solids. You can see water flow in a hollow pipe, but not electricity in a wire. ... In the latter Middle Ages, it took generations for eye glasses to become acceptable; and telescopes and microscopes weren't invented for [many] years. I wonder if that acceptance did more than enable older artisans to see their work as well feel it? Did it show that the invisible or hard to see could become visible?" Filgard paused momentarily. "The paradigm following Newton, the one we enjoy now, required the ending of certainty -- not merely the ending of practical certainty, which Newton's followers always accepted, but the ending of theoretical certainty, the ending of determinism. "In a sense," Filgard said, "insurance deals with uncertainty. Hah! Insurance was sold long before Newton! But the implications weren't felt for the longest time. I think Darwin was among the first; at least, among the first to articulate the feelings well. "In the 19th century, Darwin noted that the individuals of a biological species were different from one another. Others has seen this for [millenia], but they had not followed through. (Indeed, as Darwin himself pointed out, he was not the first; but he was the first to publicize the issue well and at the right time.) Darwin applied probability to living populations and discovered his ... Laws of Evolution. He started them walking. "Time to go back to the farm house," said Filgard. They took a different route, this time past cows fenced in a large field. ... Several cows recognized the farmer and came up to him. He patted their noses; so did Leestel, and with a bit of trepidation, Djem. Filgard then give each a carrot he took out of a pocket. "They are like horses, but more stupid," he said. "Returning to the modern paradigm," Filgard said, "in that same 19th century, once the concept of atoms became an acceptable idea, all atoms of the same mass and species were perceived as identical except for position and velocity. Probabilities were applied to those parts that differed, which led to the discovery of thermodynamics." Djem felt dizzy. He decided that his paradigm was Newtonian, with a touch of post-Newtonian, insurance-style thinking. He had not expected to hear this at a farm. ... Filgard spoke again, more to himself than the others. "I wonder whether the notion of feedback is essential, too?" He pondered. Djem plunged in. "A rat is unlike a billiard ball, which goes where it is hit. It will seldom cooperate with you." He smiled. Leestel imagined that he had worked with rats in school and found them difficult. Filgard looked up. "That's right! To be able to think in terms of living beings, that is what the notion of feedback makes possible. Engineers had used cybernetics long before it was properly discussed. The speed control that Watt invented for his steam engine is an example, as is the thermostat. But the notion did not go anywhere. You had to be a genius to apply it. "Feedback is not probability. I don't think you need feedback to understand quantum mechanics. On the other hand, you do need it to understand Darwin's laws of evolution -- without understanding feedback, you cannot understand selection. I guess the notion is essential. "Anyhow, my point is," this time, Filgard came to a conclusion, "we are living in a world with yet a different paradigm from Aristotle or Newton." Djem concluded Filgard was the oddest farmer he had ever met. Dan and Nick, may I mention your names in the Thank You section? At the moment that section consists only of: Thank You My thanks to Mohd-Hanafiah Abdullah for suggesting names. My thanks to my sister, Karen Chassell Ringwald, for suggesting a guide to pronunciation. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l