Posted by
Phil Henshaw-2 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/bigger-plans-bigger-little-mistakes-tp523782p523818.html
Robert,
As to "which 2nd law"? I guess I try to be consistent in allowing
people their regular meanings for their own terms while also trying to
connect those meanings to others that come from other perspectives. I
don't mind being called on the ambiguities at all. Some people think
nothing is real unless it can be defined and other people think nothing
is real unless it can't be defined. These both make perfect sense to
me, referring to different meanings of 'real'. The first meaning of
'real' as 'well defined' means 'part of a language' and the second
meaning of 'real' as 'needing to be undefined' means 'part of the
physical world'. I think this is a fascinating dichotomy, and
especially curious that our normal way of speaking uses the exact same
terms to refer to both meanings, (like the word 'apple'), though our
references are usually distinct (to either the thing or the idea).
I guess the '2nd law' I refer to beyond the world of precise
mathematical definitions may well originate with my dad's very skillful
explanation and demonstrations of physical properties that I thoroughly
enjoyed from age 1 on. I didn't learn the theory part till high school.
My dad was a college physics prof. who was a true master of the lab
demonstration method of teaching, which of course modern teachers have
tried to replace with theory, the whole theory and nothing but the
theory. I suspect it's my very clear perception, that the theories are
failing to communicate huge parts of what they mean in the physical
world, that partly motivated my expanding on explanatory principles for
'indefinable' physical things from ones for definable ones. One thing
I do more than others is use my models to study the data that does not
fit them.
Its one of the most curious aspects of physics that the theory of
physics actually never refers to any physical thing, but only to
idealized relationships between measures. There are dozens of ways to
show that there is really a very large difference between the idealized
model of physics and the ordinary things of experience, like, well, all
individual events. Physics describes a statistical world, not an
actual world, and all actual events progress differently than described
by physics. That doesn't mean the explanatory principles of physical
wouldn't apply to 'undefined' physical events, just that we haven't
learned how. Great useful explanatory principles like the 2nd law of
thermodynamics get short shrift as a consequence. The conservation
laws too.
I think if we were able to show that our global warming strategy
violates the 2nd law as expressed in physical systems in general, we'll
save 50 years of pursuing a demanding strategy that, as planned, is sure
to fail. Preventing the greater disruptions of global warming is
important to do, of course, but partly to give us time to fix the real
source of the problem that is actually fixable. The present plan is go
to all that trouble in order to perpetuate the underlying problem.
It's all ridiculous, of course, except that continually doubling the
real size of the world economy every 20 years, forever, if you count
real physical things anyway, is infinitely more ridiculous!! :-)
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
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-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Robert Holmes
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 4:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] bigger plans, bigger little mistakes
On 4/29/07, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
<snip>
Thus it would still appear to me that the plan for fixing global warming
violates the 2nd law, ...
Which 2nd law, Phil? Not the one generally recognised by the scientific
community, as discussed earlier. It rather reminds me of scene in
"Through the Looking Glass" where Alice meets Humpty Dumpty:
...There's glory for you!' [said Humpty Dumpty]
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell
you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it
means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
Sound familiar?
R
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