Re: From Knowledge Animals to Information Beings
DON MIKULECKY (MIKULECKY@VCUVAX.BITNET)
Sun, 21 May 1995 13:43:26 -0400
Don Mikulecky, MCV/VCU, Mikulecky@gems.vcu.edu
I've been following this (following???) conversation with some detached interest
I must admit to having not a clue as to what you are talking about or why.
Rosen's definition of complexity says that complexity is a subjective
idea resting in the number of different ways we can interact with a system.
This discussion, when contrasted with what I normally hear stated about
exactly the same topics, seems to completely bear that idea out.
I suspect that a confusion which someone attempted to clear up a few
transmissions ago still persists, namely the nature of what folks
mean by terms like "the laws of physics". Surely, what ever they are
in a Platonic sense, what we discuss and minipulate (and therefore seems
to us to evolve) is a shadow of that ideal. Wigner in his tome on
Gravitation said this and I often use the quotation in seminars.
Lewis Carroll still is a favorite of mine and I particularly
like the section where Humpty Dumpty has his conversation with Alice.
Humpty like the idea of using words in any way he pleases, as long as
he retains the power to do so. There's the rub! We are free to coin
words and concepts which simply change the names of old ideas, and we
are free to not care about whether or not others are let in on this
fascinating game, by I sugest that a responsibility comes with such
freedom. That is to interface with the past and to open discussion
to others by trying to stick to as universal a terminology as
possible. The tower of Babel has visited science more than once
and it never has been a pretty sight.
We are about to have a reality check in the U. S. A. if the
senate even comes close to doing to science what it is now
contemplating. Never before has communication been so important.
I suspect this is true all over the world.
Well enough preaching. I apologize for taxing anyone's patience.
On the other hand, if anyone else has the same sense, then maybe this
self-indulgence is worth while.
Best to all, Don Mikulecky