Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 08/05/2010 08:30 AM: > All of this, it seems to me, can be accommodated by – indeed requires – > a common language between information entropy and physics entropy, the > very language which GRANT seems to argue is impossible.
OK. But that doesn't change the sense much. Grant seemed to be arguing that it's because we use a common language to talk about the two concepts, the concepts are erroneously conflated. I.e. Grant not only admits the possibility of a common language, he _laments_ the common language because it facilitates the conflation of the two different concepts ... unless I've misinterpreted what he's said, of course. > I would like to apologize to everybody for these errors. I am beginning > to think I am too old to be trusted with a distribution list. It’s not > that I don’t go over the posts before I send them … and in fact, what I > sent represented weeks of thinking and a couple of evenings of drafting > … believe it or not! It seems that there are SOME sorts of errors I > cannot see until they are pointed out to me, and these seem to be, of > late, the fatal ones. We're all guilty of this. It's why things like peer review and criticism are benevolent gifts from those who donate their time and effort to criticize others. It's also why e-mail and forums are more powerful and useful than the discredit they usually receive. While it's true that face-to-face conversation has higher bandwidth, e-mail, forums, and papers force us to think deeply and seriously about what we say ... and, therefore think. So, as embarrassing as "errors" like this feel, they provide the fulcrum for clear and critical thinking. I say let's keep making them! Err with Gusto! ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
