Doug Pensinger wrote,
> An optimist -- and I am still an optimist -- will argue that in
> spite of forgone opportunities, the USA could help create a more
> civilized and sustainable world.
Excellent post, Robert ...
Thanks! It grew out of the discussion between Dan Minette and Nick
Arnett on various paradigms throughout history. (The initial thread
was `Liberal Capitalist Fundamentalism' which became `three paradigm
shifts?'.)
... Maybe we can still do all the things you suggest, but it will
require a sea change in attitude from where we seem to be right
now.
That requirement is for sure. But I am hoping that will happen. My
optimism depends on changes both on the technical side and on the
social or political side.
Hence, von Neuman replicators that manufacture, and government that
protects and preserves our environment.
As for the consequences of the discussion, I am busy with my first
science fiction novel. It inspired more writing.
(The book is a socioeconomic proposal disguised as an adventure and
detective story. It is what I would have liked to have read when I
was 13 or 14. Of course, there are problems, big problems. For one,
few others have the same interests I do. So its potential audience
will be small. I just don't know whether it will be too small. We
shall see. And in any case, I am not a story teller.
(When the time comes, I will seek critiques, but the book is not there
yet.)
Besides my immediate problem, which is running out of money -- I was
not paid for some work I did earlier, I am wondering whether the
fellow has the money (if any of you have renumerative projects I can
do, please tell me) -- the discussion and your remarks inspired me to
write a thousand words more. Here they are.
Filgard is a farmer whom Djem (pronounced in English, `Gem') and
Leestel are visiting.
On a totally different matter, not on paradigms, are my remarks on
cows accurate? As a young child I was a cowherd, but have forgot
everything in the years since.
... Filgard stopped pushing and the rock stopped moving. He said,
"Aristotle was right. When you stop pushing a rock, the rock
stops." This was not what Djem thought when he stopped pushing,
but he had to agree, Filgard was right.
The farmer kept talking, "Newton came along ... and distinguished
between inherent idleness and the retardation you get from rubbing
-- he extended the notions as metaphors or maybe he used existing
metaphors and made them famous. He called the two concepts
inertia and friction. So rocks without friction, like this
planet, kept moving; and rocks with friction, like this one here,"
he patted the rock, "stop."
"Aristotle had confounded the two ideas." Filgard looked at Djem,
"Aristotle probably had slaves to push the rocks. They would stop
whenever they could. They would act dumb and pretend to worry too
much. By acting stupid, they could hurt their kidnapper without
endangering themselves.
"Humph! Acting stupid enabled a slave to be more idle than he
would be otherwise. I bet idleness is the part of it that
Aristotle noticed. He thought that idleness was a natural state
of being. But Newton pointed out that rocks on a planet suffer
retardation because they rub against the soil."
Filgard kept following his train of thought. "Newton came to
distinguish inertia and friction. Newton's Laws are wrong; we
know that. Still, his notions are good enough for much
interplanetary work. Most of the time, you do not have to employ
Einstein's ideas. And Aristotle's Laws, which I doubt anyone
thinks of, work fine for pushing stones."
Filgard stopped for a moment. "There is much more to it than
that," he said. "Newton was articulating a paradigm shift. There
were lots of little shifts, but I think he explicated the first
big shift since the transition from the pre-agricultural era to
pre-industrial agriculture." He stopped for a moment. "In our
culture, I think Aristotle explicated the previous paradigm shift,
or Plato and Aristotle did, the one idealistic and the other not.
I am sure that other agricultural cultures had their own men
articulate appropriate paradigms."
"What were the characteristics of this paradigm?" Leestel asked.
Filgard explained, "Newton put an emphasis on non-living things,
like planets as dots in space. Because his equations could, in
theory, be calculated exactly, the paradigm favored determinism."
He looked at Djem as well as Leestel. "It had definite
theological implications. It affected how people interpreted
their numinous experiences.
"Besides deterministic Calvinism, which preceded Newton by a very
long time, his Laws articulated a change in his culture's
relationship with its God: omnipotence got limited. The
mathematical correlation with reality made God as subject to
natural law as humans are to kingly or legislative law.
[I don't say it in the draft, but I have heard that for the past 600
or so years, various Muslim theologians have said that their God is
omnipotent and unrestrained. Does anyone know whether this is true?]
"No one thought this way at the time, but I have to imagine the
west European concept of God as a great artificial intelligence.
He runs a simulation in which we are a part. When you don't
consider Newton, the AI can reprogram the world heedlessly. When
you do bear him in mind, a break in the simulation's `consistency
rules' makes for a miracle."
The farmer smiled. "Incidently, there is no way we can show
whether we are or are not living in a simulation: Plank's length,
which is really small, does appear to be a characteristic of our
universe; that means it is digital, but at a very high resolution.
And Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means we cannot measure as
precisely as Newton's analogue universe suggests!
Filgard surveyed the pond and the land around it. "The rocks
should go here." He pointed to three spots. Djem's stone was not
far from his spot at all. Leestel's was farthest. After pushing
his rock to his spot, Djem helped Leestel. He noticed his was
breathing heavily and sweating some, but not painfully. He could
not have done this on Earth.
"Returning to Newton ..." Filgard was obviously intent on
continuing, "what happens to apples, planets, and the like, his
rules for gravity, are invisible directly. You have to observe
and record the skies. You cannot simply see.
"Many years after him, other invisibilities became important, like
fast non-living machines that could be understood only when
slowed. When slowed, and with the right mind-set, you could see
how they worked. Direct human observation succeeds some of the
time. But at other times you can only imagine. You need to
pretend that invisible electric currents flow in certain solids.
You can see water flow in a hollow pipe, but not electricity in a
wire.
... In the latter Middle Ages, it took generations for eye glasses
to become acceptable; and telescopes and microscopes weren't
invented for [many] years. I wonder if that acceptance did more
than enable older artisans to see their work as well feel it? Did
it show that the invisible or hard to see could become visible?"
Filgard paused momentarily. "The paradigm following Newton, the
one we enjoy now, required the ending of certainty -- not merely
the ending of practical certainty, which Newton's followers always
accepted, but the ending of theoretical certainty, the ending of
determinism.
"In a sense," Filgard said, "insurance deals with uncertainty.
Hah! Insurance was sold long before Newton! But the implications
weren't felt for the longest time. I think Darwin was among the
first; at least, among the first to articulate the feelings well.
"In the 19th century, Darwin noted that the individuals of a
biological species were different from one another. Others has
seen this for [millenia], but they had not followed through.
(Indeed, as Darwin himself pointed out, he was not the first; but
he was the first to publicize the issue well and at the right
time.) Darwin applied probability to living populations and
discovered his ... Laws of Evolution.
He started them walking. "Time to go back to the farm house,"
said Filgard. They took a different route, this time past cows
fenced in a large field. ... Several cows recognized the farmer
and came up to him. He patted their noses; so did Leestel, and
with a bit of trepidation, Djem. Filgard then give each a carrot
he took out of a pocket. "They are like horses, but more stupid,"
he said.
"Returning to the modern paradigm," Filgard said, "in that same
19th century, once the concept of atoms became an acceptable idea,
all atoms of the same mass and species were perceived as identical
except for position and velocity. Probabilities were applied to
those parts that differed, which led to the discovery of
thermodynamics."
Djem felt dizzy. He decided that his paradigm was Newtonian, with
a touch of post-Newtonian, insurance-style thinking. He had not
expected to hear this at a farm.
...
Filgard spoke again, more to himself than the others. "I wonder
whether the notion of feedback is essential, too?" He pondered.
Djem plunged in. "A rat is unlike a billiard ball, which goes
where it is hit. It will seldom cooperate with you." He smiled.
Leestel imagined that he had worked with rats in school and found
them difficult.
Filgard looked up. "That's right! To be able to think in terms
of living beings, that is what the notion of feedback makes
possible. Engineers had used cybernetics long before it was
properly discussed. The speed control that Watt invented for his
steam engine is an example, as is the thermostat. But the notion
did not go anywhere. You had to be a genius to apply it.
"Feedback is not probability. I don't think you need feedback to
understand quantum mechanics. On the other hand, you do need it
to understand Darwin's laws of evolution -- without understanding
feedback, you cannot understand selection. I guess the notion is
essential.
"Anyhow, my point is," this time, Filgard came to a conclusion,
"we are living in a world with yet a different paradigm from
Aristotle or Newton."
Djem concluded Filgard was the oddest farmer he had ever met.
Dan and Nick, may I mention your names in the Thank You section? At
the moment that section consists only of:
Thank You
My thanks to Mohd-Hanafiah Abdullah for suggesting names.
My thanks to my sister, Karen Chassell Ringwald, for suggesting a
guide to pronunciation.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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