-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Tim wrote:
>The modern name for this outlook is "chaos theory," but I believe >"chaos" gives almost mystical associations to something which is really >quite understandable: divergences in decimal expansions. >Discrepancies come marching in, fairly rapidly, from "out there in the >expansion." >Another way of looking at unpredictabality is to say that real objects >in real space and subject to real forces from many other real objects >are in the world of the "real numbers" and any representation of a real >number as a 25-digit number (diameter of the solar system to within 1 >centimeter) or even as a 100-digit number (utterly beyond all hope of >meaurement!) is just not enough. >(snip) In short, predictability is a physical and computational chimera: it >does not, and cannot, exist. Fascinating post on a fascinating subject, but since I'm too short of time for the kind of reply it deserves, here's a minor aside for anyone interested in developing practical applications of complexity theory on cypherpunk themes: you might find some of the works listed here relevant and useful... Complexity, Global Politics and National Security Complexity And Chaos: A Working Bibliography School of Information Warfare and Strategy National Defense University Washington, D.C. http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/books/complexity/bibliogr.html The fact that NDU is putting so much stock in R&D in these areas as part of their information warfare efforts is interesting in its own right. Even if it ultimately proves to be nothing more than a dead-end bunch of hooey, libertarians of all persuasions ought to at least be aware of the kinds of research going on, where analysts are trying to take this field. Especially those with a background like yours who are in the perfect position to make a real open-literature counter-contribution someday if the alchemists of predictability ever do come across their philosopher's stone. Improbable--crazy, even--but when did that ever stop a mathematician: "All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control." --John von Neumann. This is what's ultimately at stake. Fascinating, terrifying. The only way to counter math is with better math. Oh well, so it seems to me. ~Faustine. *** He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - --Thomas Paine -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBPMXr0fg5Tuca7bfvEQIfJACgz1DxiddKDkm1bw6ZfrGGMUQ6D3wAoMrP lQBfq2Wfh2qMxdFkbHnJnDdr =mCZt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
