Howard, lists,
Howard, you wrote,
If one thinks this way, then every physical event is a measurement.
That won't work for an empiricist.
[End quote]
I've held off on replying because I didn't understand that remark and
I've blamed myself. Could you elaborate a bit on it? What does
empiricism have to do with not regarding every physical event as a
measurement?
(I had been thinking of every physical interaction, or at least every
physical event complete enough to show conservation, as an imprinting of
information onto an environment, onto a body, etc. and, in that perhaps
overly special sense, a 'measurement', anyway a spreading of news
irrespectively of whether that body constitutes a living thing or a
person that (or who), as a practical matter, can read the information.
In other words, I'm trying to avoid the idea that actual persons or
living things need to conduct a measurement in order for decoherence to
occur.)
Thanks for your further comments below. I agree that 'functional',
'useful', 'fitness', and 'virtue', are somewhat vague and apt to depend
on other vague terms for their partial clarification (e.g., virtue as
'due' behavioral disposition that has 'strength' or 'force' to oppose
'pressure' against it - prudence as due caution despite pressure or
temptation to do otherwise, and so on, systematically if not without
vagueness).
Best, Ben
On 5/2/2015 4:37 PM, Howard Pattee wrote:
At 11:32 AM 5/1/2015, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Howard, I don't see why a rock's hitting the ground on a lifeless
planet shouldn't be taken as occasioning a measurement.
HP: If one thinks this way, then every physical event is a
measurement. That won't work for an empiricist.
BU: That's the sense that I got for example from Gell-Mann's _The
Quark and the Jaguar_.
HP: I don't think so. I think Gell-Mann says only his IGUSes
(Information Gathering and Using Systems) make measurements.
BU: I can see how people can disagree about which interactions
constitute measurements, but the key thing that seems to distinguish
the biological situation is not a measurement per se but a kind of
evaluation or appraisal or act of classification, reflecting the
living thing's interests as a member of a species or lineage, and
those interests have to do with reproduction of fertile offspring.
HP: I agree with your entire discussion. I think you have the right
idea. My word is that measurement must be /functional / (same as
Gell-Mann's "useful") The problem is defining /functional/ and
/useful/. I've given up on that, along with/fitness/ and/virtue/
Howard
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