On 1/29/2012 9:02 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 29.01.2012 00:57 meekerdb said the following:
On 1/28/2012 3:15 PM, Pierz wrote:
On Jan 28, 11:04 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
...
Let my quote Jeffrey Gray (Consciousness: Creeping up on the
Hard Problem, p. 33) on biology and physics.
"In very general terms, biology makes use of two types of
concept: physicochemical laws and feedback mechanisms. The latter
include both the feedback operative in natural selection, in
which the controlled variables that determine survival are
nowhere explicitly represented within the system; and
servomechanisms, in which there is a specific locus of
representation capable of reporting the values of the controlled
variables to other system components and to other systems. The
relationship between physicochemical laws and cybernetic
mechanisms in the biological perspective on biology poses no deep
problems. It consist in a kind of a contract: providing
cybernetics respects the laws of physics and chemistry, its
principles may be used to construct any kind of feedback system
that serves a purpose. Behaviour as such does not appear to
require for its explanation any principles additional to these."
Roughly speaking Gray's statement is
Biology = Physics + Feedback mechanisms
Yet even at this stage (just at a level of bacteria, I guess
there is no qualia yet) it is unclear to me whether physics
includes cybernetics laws or they emerge/supervene. What is your
opinion to this end?
What are "cybernetics laws"? Can they be written down like the
Standard Model Lagrangian or Einstein's equation?
Basically the cybernetics laws describe a feedback. Let us for a example consider a PID
controller to keep the temperature constant in a thermostat. What is the relationship
between the equations implemented in the controller and physics laws? Do these equations
emerge from or supervene to the physics laws?
The equations describe the 'boundary conditions' as well as the physical laws. For
example Kirchoff's law just says current is conserved in electrical circuits, but to use
this law in an equation describing the function of some circuit the equations must also
describe the configuration of the circuit.
Brent
Evgenii
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