Babytalk: A constraint is a "limit". There are forces (smacks on your bottom ? electric shocks ?) you shall experience which keep you within those limits or to push you back if you stray outside.
On 3/13/11, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear anybody, > > > > I am reviewing a book by a psychologist in which the author makes a > distinction between constraints and causes. Now perhaps I am over thinking > this, but this distinction seems to parallel one made by Feynman in his > famous physics text, where he defines a constraint as a force that does no > work. If I have it right, the idea goes like this: If you place a bowling > ball on a table the ball neither receives work from gravity nor does the > table do any work holding the ball up because the ball does not move, and > work is just the movement of mass. Indeed, even if you were to slide the > table out and, with great effort, were to hold the ball in the same position > for an hour, you wouldn't be doing any work, either. Similarly, in a ball > rolling down an inclined plane, the plane itself does no work because even > tho it affects the motion of the ball, its effect is always perpendicular to > the motion of the ball and there fore affects its motion neither one way or > the either .. i.e., does no work! > > > > Now I would leave it at that except that Alicia Juarrero in her book also > makes a huge distinction between forces and constraints, one which I think > our own Steve Guerin applauds. It is the constraints that make it possible > for far-from-equilibrium systems to self organize and do work. Perhaps I > can make this work with Feynman's definition if I think about the dam beside > a water wheel, and the water wheel itself, as applying constraints to the > water (they do no work themselves) which make it possible for the falling > water to do work. Am I still on track, here? > > > > Now Juarrero goes on to make a distinction between between context sensitive > and context-free. I have read these passages dozens of times and I just > don't understand this distinction. Can anybody out there explain it to me > as to a Very Small Child. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Nick > > > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > http://www.cusf.org <http://www.cusf.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
