Nick and all, If the following comment has already been made (and disposed of), please accept my apologies (the house was full of visitors for a while and I stopped keeping up with my mail).
One thing that leaps to my eye in the description of the empirical experiment made by Nick, and suggested to Steve by Nick, is the opacity of the "pull the plug" part-- both figurative and literal opacity, since (I am assuming) Nick hasn't got one of those nifty all-glass _ sinks that used to show up in commercials for Drano). Is it possible that there is some structure of a vorticial sort located (just) out of sight, within the water that is exiting the basin (and the drain pipe through which it is exiting), and that the energy/organization/whatever of *that* part of the total water/basin/drain pipe system is closely (though obscurely) coupled to the visible vortice(s), in such a way that the observed phenomena follow more obviously from the facts-including-the-hidden-subsystem than they seem to be doing from only the facts-not- including-the-hidden-subsystem? (Peter L., does that sound even remotely reasonable from your informed perspective on fluid flow?) > > > > You and I are the only two participants in that discussion to have presented > any empirical evidence. In the spirit of experimental collegiality, would > you try my experiment, and report back to me. Fill a basin with water Set > it to spinning in a concerted way. Be careful not to impose any more > turbulence than you have to. Just help the water to decide which way it is > going to spin. Now pull the plug. Watch the water level fall while also > watching the organization of the vortex. At some point the "natural" vortex > will fall in line with the artificial vortex you have imposed, or vv. When > that happens, the rate at which the water line moves down the basin wall > will slow dramatically while the vortex spins ferociously. You will think > for a moment .... this could go on forever .... and then it doesn´t. If the > gradient is the water, above, no water below gradient, AND the gradient > dissipation consists of moving the water downward (all suspicious > assumptions), then the vortex is certainly slowing the dissipation of that > gradient. If, on the other hand, the gradient has something to do with > energy, which I don´t understand, obviously¸ then somebody like SG might > argue that the very ferocity of the ineffectually spinning vortex is > nature´s way of working off the energy gradient, like somebody exercising > after a large thanksgiving dinner. The idea would be that a ferociously > spinning vortex is a better way to dissipate the potential energy in the > water than having the water flow down through the drain. So nature chooses > that path. Thus, the same facts (the formation of the vortex slows the > draining of the water) could be seen as supporting or countering the theory > that "dissipative structures hasten dissipation". Which means I have to > have a better idea of what is being dissipated by a dissipatory structure. > > > > > > 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
