Gary,
Actually, you weren't taking too much for granted, at least not with most of
the listers, only with ignorant me. I think most listers have either read
Prigogine or read discussions about him. I have a book of his somewhere but
haven't read it.
>[Gary] However i still don't find anything
Ben:
Someone back in the dark ages of cybernetics and system theory remarked that
there was no way of knowing whether entropy was a feature of the universe or
of our information regarding the universe. And about the same time Colin
Cherry wrote, "Mind is real; matter is mystery." I decided t
ABSTRACT: I give ten quotes in honor of THE INERTIA OF THE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM and stimulated by the backlash of parents and
teachers to the implementation of Leon Lederman's (2001) "Physics
First" in the San Diego schools, as reported by Wall Street Journal
reporter Rob Tomsho.
If you reply t
Victoria,
[[ Prigogine and Sagan/Schneider do tend to conflate "purpose,"
"function" and "final cause." ]]
That's true, and i'm sure i conflate them myself occasionally -- and so
did Peirce, in the paragraph i'm about to quote (below). In many
contexts the distinctions among them are just not wor
Ben,
Yes, i was taking too much for granted when i started using the term
here. Especially as the name "dissipative structure" is not especially
well-chosen -- partly for the reasons you mention, and partly because
it's really about systems (and thus involves processes) and not merely
structures.
On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:58 PM, gnusystems wrote:
First, Victoria wrote that "the
appropriateness of saying that the reduction of the gradient is the
purpose of the universe or the purpose of any organism." -- and then
went on to connect this idea with "Peirce's view of final cause",
although i h
