PUZZLED ELEPHANT TO MARCO RE ENTROPY:
OK, Marco, I'll have a shot at explaining myself. In short I was testing
the water, to see if you say "yes that's it" or "no, that's not what I meant
at all, at all, that's not what I meant at all". Underneath that I may well
still have a point. Maybe not. Let's see.
MARCO HAD WRITTEN:
> The inorganic world also "simplifies experience" and
> behaves according to patterns. But if you are using "life" also for the
> inorganic level, we agree.
>
ROG WROTE:
> I do not know of any examples that inorganic reality simplifies experience.
>
MARCO WROTE:
> IMO when an electron captures energy and performs a quantum leap, it
> simplifies experience. IMO when light passes through a prism and splits in
> colors, it simplifies experience. "Experience" is simply interaction within
> an environment, and behavior is the answer to the experience. The behavior
> is always organized according to simple patterns, even at the inorganic
> level.
ELEPHANT WROTE:
I wonder if the fact that entropy doesn't get in the way of your thesis
about simplifying experience means that for you the simplification is
performed by the conceiving of the object, not the object itself (where
'itself' is understood to be something separate from the conception).
Anywhere near the mark?
MARCO WROTE:
> 1) You say that entropy does not get in the way of my thesis. Can you
> please explain further your point?
ELEPHANT:
My first reaction on rereading my post is to say: 'oh no, I've got that
about entropy all arse about tit, thus revealing my complete ignorance about
any real science, oh hell, I should go back into the hole I crawled from and
lurk awhile for the betterment of my soul'. However, there is a second
reaction, and I think I can just about guess at what I was driving at.
What I was getting at was this: is your thesis about simplifing experience
really connected to the physics of the situation? I mean, if it is (and you
do discuss electrons), then it would seem that considerations like entropy
would be relevant. But you don't even discuss entropy, or anything like
that, so maybe your thesis isn't about the physics. That was the point.
On reflection (this is the 'go back to your hole' worry), entropy would, in
a sense, help your thesis, supposing it was a physics thesis. Entropy is
the idea (so far as I understand it - feel free to put me right), that the
action of physical laws tends towards an equal distribution of matter and
energy, towards filling in the gaps, if you like. There are two images that
seem to illustrate this thought. The one is of dropping a glass, which
shatters on the ground. It takes a lot of energy to put a glass together
and to hold it (if you fill it right up and have already drunk too much),
and it you suddenly loose your grip and let nature take its course the glass
sets about turning back into the sand it came from, bit by hard-to-hoover
bit. The second is the wine in the glass. However drunkenly you pour it
in, however much it sloshes up the other side and onto the carpet, whatever
is left in the glass rapidly assumes a uniform distribution so that, so long
as you are not dancing with it in your hand, you could use the thing as a
set-level. So: the gaps are filled in, and matter and energy come to be
evenly distributed throughout the dark purple liquid. Apply this kind of
drinking party insight to asteroids and galaxies and
super-massive-black-holes and stuff, and there are Astrophysicists who will
tell you that even if the Human Race survives the Atom Bomb, the Greenhouse
Effect, the Dying of the Sun, and the crashing of our Galaxy into the one
next door, eventually the matter and energy in the universe will be so
evenly distributed that you could use the entire universe as a set-level,
just like that glass of wine. And in that event, we certainly couldn't
exist, of course, because we are rather uneven distributions of matter and
energy. In that event, you see, we would have been simplified to death -
smoothed out of existence as it were - by entropy.
Now I'm not saying that I necessarily believe that stuff (or that I have the
deep understanding of the physics to really support that beleif if I did
believe it), but what I'm saying is that this is one kind of simplification:
entropy is the simplification by which everything becomes completely the
same.
What might be interesting and informative to reflect on, is whether this
could be the kind of simplification you are talking about. It probably
isn't, and maybe entropy will offer you some useful kind of contrast.
Explain how what you mean by simplification is different to entropy - that
will help explain to me what you mean. A conveinient starting point, if you
like.
CHRIS WROTE:
> 2) You talk about "object" as something separate by conception.... of
> course our knowledge of the inorganic level can't be separated by our
> conception. It's like Danila's question:
>
> "If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, is there a sound?"
>
> Let's try to divide the phenomenon in
> a. "sound as is"
> b. "sound as we perceive it"
> c. "sound as we know it"
>
> Is a. existing? Is a. real? MU
>
> IMO we can just "rebuild" a. from c. and b. That's like to say: for what we
> know, it's arguable that in the forest there were the conditions by which it
> would have been possible to perceive a sound. The c. point is always a
> patterned simplification, and can't be exactly the "hardcopy" of a. However,
> IMO even a. is, for what we know, a patterned behavior.
ELEPHANT:
Yes I think I'd agree with that, so long as "behavior" is the right kind of
inclusive concept (I wouldn't be a 'behaviorist', because that normally goes
with an ontological prejudice about what kinds of behavior are there to be
factored in). When I mentioned the idea of an object itself separate from
our conception, that wasn't an idea I was pushing as true. Not at all. I
was just pushing to see where you stood. And I think you stand in the right
place. However, having established that you don't beleive in Kantian
noumena, I am then a bit puzzled about your talking of the simplification in
terms of electrons. Maybe you can help me out there.
Perhaps I can help you out by suggesting another reading of your
simplifications, for purposes of contrast or elucidation etc. It seems to
me that you might be saying that thinking of the electron in a certain way
is the most beautiful account, and that being simple is part of that. I
would have much good MOQ sympathy for the thought that science is an
aesthetic discipline in this way. Intellect is always art, in my opinion.
Bad art and stupid art are all the same, in my veiw. "Is it art?" they ask
of a pile of bricks. Well of course it is, everthing is, what a stupid
question. The question they should ask is "Is this good art?", to which the
answer is "no, not if you've got any taste at all".
Hoping this helps a bit somewhere,
Pzeph
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