> [Krimel] > When you and your friend agree to meet you are sharing a purpose. But as > you say "a lot of things can intervene." That is chance. Everything that > happens between your agreement to met and the time of the meeting will be > purely deterministic.
[Craig] Which is it: chance or deterministic? What if I had scheduled another meeting in conflict with the first? [Krimel] Both. Schedule conflicts are among the possible events that could disrupt or sidetrack the chain of probabilities that run from your scheduling the meeting to attending the meeting. > [Krimel] > Given any set of unique conditions there are many possible results. A > unique result will occur... [Craig] Aren't these 2 statements incompatible? [Krimel] No. There are any number of possible future that can result from any given set of conditions but only one will. > [Krimel] > What chance gives us is causation and determinism with limited > predictability. [Craig] What accounts for the limited predictability: the many possible results or our ignorance of the unique result? [Krimel] Consider that it is not just a matter of our ignorance. This is ignorance that can not be overcome, in principle. In order to achieve the level of prediction that you envision we would need complete knowledge of even the position of even particle in the universe. This can't happen. Or there are other sets of circumstances where all the the relevant data is available but prediction is still not possible. Three or four bodies orbiting in space under purely Newtonian rules are chaotic. You can see this in the novelty items at Spencer's gift store. You can hear it in the dripping of leaky fawcets. > [Krimel] > IMHO this is why I identify chance with DQ. It is why I think Pirsig was > pointing at a moon he did not see clearly enough. Craig But mightn't this be where you & Pirsig are in agreement? [Krimel] I think so and have been trying very hard to say so for the past three years. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
