Posted by
glen e. p. ropella-2 on
Oct 13, 2009; 1:47am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-question-for-the-emergentists-among-you-tp3799888p3811877.html
Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 10/12/2009 05:48 PM:
> 1. *Operators.* What do you mean by an operator? Would you give a few
> examples.
It's nothing special. It's defined as: a mapping between two function
spaces.
1) The perception of a "glider" while watching the game of life.
2) Square root: R -> C.
3) Hydrolysis.
> 2. *Properties. *It seems to me that one of the most basic properties is
> mass. Another is electric charge. Do you not see these as properties? Or is
> it your position that only primitive (and perhaps circular) properties make
> sense?
Ultimately both mass and charge are relational operators. Mass is
measured against a normalized reference object (a convenient fiction)
and negative, neutral, and positive charges don't make sense if you
remove any one of them. So, both mass and charge are _definitely_
phenomena because they are measured with respect to some extrinsic
object. However, the dominant way we USE the concept of mass allows us
to trust in the abstraction that mass is an intrinsic property (at least
as long as we don't consider relative inertial frames). So, I usually
trust that abstraction and consider mass a property. But, for example,
a negative charge is definitely NOT intrinsic to an electron. Charge is
a relational operator between different objects, e.g. one negative and
one positive.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com============================================================
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