http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Assistance-sought-The-meaning-of-constraints-tp6165767p6165882.html
A constraint is a "limit". There are forces (smacks on your bottom ?
> Dear anybody,
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> I am reviewing a book by a psychologist in which the author makes a
> distinction between constraints and causes. Now perhaps I am over thinking
> this, but this distinction seems to parallel one made by Feynman in his
> famous physics text, where he defines a constraint as a force that does no
> work. If I have it right, the idea goes like this: If you place a bowling
> ball on a table the ball neither receives work from gravity nor does the
> table do any work holding the ball up because the ball does not move, and
> work is just the movement of mass. Indeed, even if you were to slide the
> table out and, with great effort, were to hold the ball in the same position
> for an hour, you wouldn't be doing any work, either. Similarly, in a ball
> rolling down an inclined plane, the plane itself does no work because even
> tho it affects the motion of the ball, its effect is always perpendicular to
> the motion of the ball and there fore affects its motion neither one way or
> the either .. i.e., does no work!
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> Now I would leave it at that except that Alicia Juarrero in her book also
> makes a huge distinction between forces and constraints, one which I think
> our own Steve Guerin applauds. It is the constraints that make it possible
> for far-from-equilibrium systems to self organize and do work. Perhaps I
> can make this work with Feynman's definition if I think about the dam beside
> a water wheel, and the water wheel itself, as applying constraints to the
> water (they do no work themselves) which make it possible for the falling
> water to do work. Am I still on track, here?
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> Now Juarrero goes on to make a distinction between between context sensitive
> and context-free. I have read these passages dozens of times and I just
> don't understand this distinction. Can anybody out there explain it to me
> as to a Very Small Child.
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> Thanks,
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> Nick
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> Nicholas S. Thompson
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> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
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> Clark University
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http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
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http://www.cusf.org <
http://www.cusf.org/>
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College