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Thing one and Thing two

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HighlandWindsLLC Miller

Thing one and Thing two

Thing One: Having read the book Complexity recently (I know -- late to the game) I wondered if Chris Langton's Edge of Chaos, Lambda point arguing a point at which life began/begins, could have a similar counter point at which life ends -- and if so, has that been modeled somehow? Meaning, has that scientific evaluation been put out there in such a way it could help formulate the context where we might cause all life to end?

(by the way, hi, I am Peggy Miller, new to the group, like reading your different questions and ideas, had a couple that might not be pertinent, but figured I would fling them out to you ... I am a writer, and include scientific concepts in my novels, and am worried about global warming, population levels, and general global depletion of resources; live in Missoula, Montana.)

Thing Two:

reading A New Kind of Science, I wondered whether since pi is an approximate, 3.1416, then does that mean a circle is never perfect?

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Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Thing one and Thing two

Yes, there’s a good way to connect beginning and ending. It’s as a organized series of questions applicable to any circumstance where change is conserved. It’s based on the emergent continuities of beginning and ending, that require accumulation, and that the accumulations need to change sign at the turning points. It’s an exploratory method, that might result in individualized representations if complex systems, but exploratory rather than deterministic models since the latter would require representing environments and that doesn’t seem possible.

Exploration gives you a window into the emergence of the behavioral systems that do it. It uses the fact that the best model of reality is reality itself. Since we don’t have the formulas the alternative is watching closely and asking good questions about things that are developing their own formulas, as evidenced in the emergence of continuity in how they change. It’s ass backwards of how everyone wants the world to follow our instructions… but works.

When all life as we know it ends, I presume it would be the sun exploding or other cosmic coincidence. I don’t think life could extinguish life entirely. There is some suggestion that a number of the great collapses in the number of species were systemic collapses of the life system as a whole, though. I have not read anything good as to how, just some evidence that extinction rates sometimes accelerate to a collapse, not just subside after a shock. We’re bringing one of those about at the moment, aren’t we, precipitating some kind of grand collapse of the living systems that we found here?

On pi, Ideal circles are quite ideal I think. You can fill in new imaginary points on an imaginary plane wherever you want and to whatever precision you want, just by specification. It’s only real circles that have to deal with being made by unruly physical stuff like hand crafts or computers that are always going to be a little bumpy... ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of peggy miller
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 1:18 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Thing one and Thing two

Thing Two:

reading A New Kind of Science, I wondered whether since pi is an approximate, 3.1416, then does that mean a circle is never perfect?