--- In unrev-II@y..., Jack Park <jackpark@t...> wrote:
> Don Mikuleky just sent to his complexity list the URLs of two talks
he gave
> in Alaska, one to the public and one to the faculty there. They
are:
> http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/alskapub.htm
> <http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/alskapub.htm>
> and one to the faculty
> http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/alskuniv.htm
> <http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/alskuniv.htm>
>
> I recommend looking at these talks to those who take an interest in
modeling
> the universe one way or another. In the end, I get from all of
this that
> our simple Newtonian qualitative reasoning systems are at risk of
not being
> robust enough to model the universe and everything. Rather, we are
going to
> have to find some other way(s) of modeling, and an important
pointer to the
> technology for that lies in Don's talks, and other stuff found at
his site
> http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/ <http://views.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/>
>
> I have looked at the talks you mention, and, unfortunately find the
veracity of some of Mikuleck's statments to be in doubt.
As I've found elsewhere in discussions of systems, Mikuleck
strongly disses standard atomic theory reductionism -- decomposition
into atoms and molecules misses important stuff, or so it is claimed,
just like vitalists claim as well. The problem is that there is no
evidence to support such a supposition, particularly when the
electric and magnetic atomic/molecular fields are considered -- as
they must be, they supply lots of the magic of physics. Think of the
laser, superconductivity, the Hodgkin-Huxley model of neural pulse
generation and transmission -- all highly complex systems the
description of the behavior of which is based on extraordinarily
simple principles. The sum greater than the parts -- physics handles
this issue quite elegantly in many instances.
Apart perhaps from string theory, the Newtonian model/approach is
alive, well and extremely productive. It is somewhat ironic that this
approach dominates even quantum mechanics -- we use classical
descriptions of quantum systems to help develop the proper quantum
mechanical approach. The entire field of chaos and complexity arose
from Newtonian mechanics, and later work in the 30s and 40s in
electrical circuits and biology were formulated in "Newtonian" terms.
An enormous amount of work in neurophysiology and cognitive science,
in biochemistry and biophysics, even thermodynamics and stochastic
dynamics is fundamentally Newtonian. And more holistic, global and
topological approaches flow directly from the Newtonian approach, as
well.
The reason that this Newtonian approach is the best game in town:
it emphasizes empiricism, it searches for simple(understandable)
causes, more complex causal mechanisms if necessary, and it prizes
sharp, logical analysis. It has a major drawback-- it can be very
difficult to pursue, and also to understand, and for the most part
requires a sophisticated mastery of mathematics. Adhominum dismissals
of the basic scientific approach do great disservice to their authors
and to science. Physics is a lot more powerful than outsiders can
easily know.
You want visionary, out-of-the-box, stimulating ideas: read Sir
Francis Crick's The Amazing Hypothesis. If you want to speculate,
dream and learn from others, then make sure their basic science is
correct. And in the talks you reference, some of the basic science is
very suspect. For many of us who have spent much time and energy to
do science, the dismissal of our endeavors, as missing something or
God know what else, is annoying at the least.
Regards,
Reilly Atkinson
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