>
>I thought I'd cite an excerpt from an article in that highly
>prestigious technical journal _Time_ magazine <Big Grin>.
>Come Monday I might dig up old articles I saved on this topic
>and placed in cold storage to make room for newer fads like
>neural-networks and genetic algorithms. These articles have some
>very sound reasoning about the limits of chaos theory in modeling
>natural processes on the bases of Shannon's information theory.
>
Thanks for this reference, I hope you will take the time to dig up
the other references that you mention.
The time article reminded me a little of the recent critical review
by Horgan in Scientific American.
This raises an interesting question. Why would _Time_ speak well of
something like evolutionary psychology and then poo poo complexity
and self-organization? There are a number of possibilities, of
course, but I strongly suspect that this reflects some discomfort
about the implications of this field.
In a recent post I mentioned a book by Harold Morowitz:
_Cosmic Joy & Local Pain_, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987.
It turns out that Morowitz has been involved with applications of
self-organization in biology for a long time. I'm not familiar
enough with the history of this subject to say for sure, but I
suspect that he is one of the pioneers of the field.
Here are a few quotes from his book which will likely make
hard-core naturalists shudder ;-).
The question is whether life with all its subtleties is
some accidental property called into existence by events
of blind chance or whether it is a more fundamental property
of the world of nature. As we study the complex and interrelated
aspects of planetary life, are we simply to attribute it all to
random events, or are we to seek deep meanings about ourselves
and the cosmos? Looking at the evidence, Henderson opted for the
latter approach. So do I, but that commitment to meaning only
becomes apparent after one spends some considerable effort looking
into our understanding of the physics and chemistry of life and
the biological applications.
[p. 104]
The interrelatedness of living things has long been discussed by
philosophers and theologians. It is now clear from science alone
that the interrelatedness is built into the laws of nature in the
most fundamental ways. For this planet, life processes are part
of the regulatory mechanisms that maintain all of nature in a
self-sustaining manner. If that isn't design, I don't know what is.
[p. 166]
Like Dyson and Henderson and Teilhard, I find it hard not to see
design in a universe that works so well. Each new scientific
discovery seems to reinforce that vision of design. As I like to
say to my friends, the universe works much better than we have
any right to expect.
[p. 298]
[...]
quoting _Time_
>
>That's a big if. The field of complexity is considered, at best,
>inchoate but fruitful and, at worst, inchoate and sterile. The
>field's epicenter, a fledgling think tank called the Santa Fe Institute,
>has a suspiciously trendy locale; the term self-organization crops up
>with suspicious frequency in new-age circles; and suspiciously,
>Kauffman and Prigogine have reputations for hawking their wares
>aggressively.
>
I think there is a name for this, _ad-hominem_, and it makes me
want to puke ;-).
_Time_ again:
>But the field is also populated by, and taken seriously by, some people
>who aren't viewed with suspicion.
Prigogine viewed with suspicion, good grief. Excuse me, I have to go
puke again ;-).
I'm glad they mentioned C.H. Bennett, however, if I were to construct
a list of prominant individuals he might not even make the top five.
First of all, Prigogine would be in *this* list and not the former.
We also would have such people as Murray Gell-Mann, Paul Davies,
Manfred Eigen, W. H. Zurek, Stephen Wolphram, John Casti and Hermann
Haken.
========================
Brian Harper |
Associate Professor | "It is not certain that all is uncertain,
Applied Mechanics | to the glory of skepticism" -- Pascal
Ohio State University |