Esteemed edstaters:
Does the following post (from another list) pertain to the domain of edstat?
If so, would anyone care to comment thereupon? Enjoy!!
<<Stochasticity. This is just meant to reflect the probability of consensus.
One could also talk about selectivity, a stochastic process, of course. Say,
the Holiest Imam of Saudi Arabia issues a fatwa (this happened a few years
ago: the right - not the obligation - to kill) against everyone who does not
adhere to the belief that the earth is flat. The probability ot that verdict
becoming universal is very low. At the same time creationists in the USA
are fighting legal battles against the teaching of Darwinian evolution in
schools. This battle also is unlikely to lead to an universal or global consensus/concept because believers outside of the USA already have their cosmological mythologies, and others are rather more permissive towards
asking scientific questions. It is a stochastic, a probability game. If we
accept that reality is a social construct, we have to acknowledge that
"social" means a probability game. Basic concepts (not baseline ones)
need social acclaim. You can be satisfied with a few and, if you care,
become a revolutionary. If you need more acclaim, you want to become
chairperson of a doctoral committee. Fuzzy logic also is a stochastic
approach: the computer learning consensus in pattern recognition. >>
Harley
