Posted by
Nick Thompson on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Assistance-sought-The-meaning-of-constraints-tp6165767p6171641.html
Interesting. I need to reread the other suggestions, but I think it's a New
Thought.
Thanks,
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Sarbajit Roy
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 1:21 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Assistance sought: The meaning of constraints
Babytalk:
A constraint is a "limit". There are forces (smacks on your bottom ?
electric shocks ?) you shall experience which keep you within those limits
or to push you back if you stray outside.
On 3/13/11, Nicholas Thompson <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> Dear anybody,
>
>
>
> 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!
>
>
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
http://www.cusf.org <
http://www.cusf.org/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
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