Humpty, OK, I give up. Even though I may agree with your conclusions (yup, doubling the world economy ever couple of decades is probably not a good thing) I can't find any scientific validity in the arguments you use to get there. Real science does not give equal weight to your version of the second law as it does to Clausius's, no matter how much you may want it to. Your constant redefinitions of scientific terms to mean something you want them to mean rather than what they mean for everyone else makes conversations bizarre and frustrating.
Robert On 4/30/07, Phil Henshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Robert, As to "which 2nd law"? I guess I try to be consistent in allowing people their regular meanings for their own terms while also trying to connect those meanings to others that come from other perspectives. I don't mind being called on the ambiguities at all. Some people think nothing is real unless it can be defined and other people think nothing is real unless it can't be defined. These both make perfect sense to me, referring to different meanings of 'real'. The first meaning of 'real' as 'well defined' means 'part of a language' and the second meaning of 'real' as 'needing to be undefined' means 'part of the physical world'. I think this is a fascinating dichotomy, and especially curious that our normal way of speaking uses the exact same terms to refer to both meanings, (like the word 'apple'), though our references are usually distinct (to either the thing or the idea). I guess the '2nd law' I refer to beyond the world of precise mathematical definitions may well originate with my dad's very skillful explanation and demonstrations of physical properties that I thoroughly enjoyed from age 1 on. I didn't learn the theory part till high school. My dad was a college physics prof. who was a true master of the lab demonstration method of teaching, which of course modern teachers have tried to replace with theory, the whole theory and nothing but the theory. I suspect it's my very clear perception, that the theories are failing to communicate huge parts of what they mean in the physical world, that partly motivated my expanding on explanatory principles for 'indefinable' physical things from ones for definable ones. One thing I do more than others is use my models to study the data that does not fit them. Its one of the most curious aspects of physics that the theory of physics actually never refers to any physical thing, but only to idealized relationships between measures. There are dozens of ways to show that there is really a very large difference between the idealized model of physics and the ordinary things of experience, like, well, all individual events. Physics describes a statistical world, not an actual world, and all actual events progress differently than described by physics. That doesn't mean the explanatory principles of physical wouldn't apply to 'undefined' physical events, just that we haven't learned how. Great useful explanatory principles like the 2nd law of thermodynamics get short shrift as a consequence. The conservation laws too. I think if we were able to show that our global warming strategy violates the 2nd law as expressed in physical systems in general, we'll save 50 years of pursuing a demanding strategy that, as planned, is sure to fail. Preventing the greater disruptions of global warming is important to do, of course, but partly to give us time to fix the real source of the problem that is actually fixable. The present plan is go to all that trouble in order to perpetuate the underlying problem. It's all ridiculous, of course, except that continually doubling the real size of the world economy every 20 years, forever, if you count real physical things anyway, is infinitely more ridiculous!! :-) Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com -----Original Message----- *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Robert Holmes *Sent:* Monday, April 30, 2007 4:42 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] bigger plans, bigger little mistakes On 4/29/07, Phil Henshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > <snip> Thus it would still appear to me that the plan for fixing global warming > violates the 2nd law, ... Which 2nd law, Phil? Not the one generally recognised by the scientific community, as discussed earlier. It rather reminds me of scene in "Through the Looking Glass" where Alice meets Humpty Dumpty: ...There's glory for you!' [said Humpty Dumpty] `I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"' `But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected. `When *I* use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' Sound familiar? R ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
