>>>DNAunion: Yes. I feel it is legitimate to look at individual components
of an aggregate system and determine their individual tendencies, isolated
from the others.
>>>David Bowman: What makes you think they necessarily even have such
intrinsic "tendencies" that are independent of the situation in which such a
component finds itself?
************************************
DNAunion: I don't. I even mentioned this earlier in response to your
restated counter concerning tea. Tea itself does not have an intrinsic
tendency (one could always go to the extreme and talk about tea on the Sun,
or Pluto, or Europa), but a cup of hot tea cooling off - the way I phrased it
- does.
I am talking about taking something like processes that occur in cells (or
weightlifters bench pressing weights, or see-saws responses to weighted
objects being placed on the two ends), isolating individual parts/processes
of them, then determining what their individual tendencies are. In all of
these cases, I am talking about conditions as found here on Earth - not on
Jupiter, and without supermassive black holes passing by, or hurricanes
blowing everything around, or dynamite blowing stuff up, or nanorobots
tinkering with things - that is, in AS NORMAL of a set of conditions as
possible: as close to conditions as people expect to find these things here
on Earth. These isolated processes DO have specific tendencies.
************************************
>>>DNAunion: In a two-part system, if (1) the primary tendency is in one
direction (the bag of sugar tends to take up a position as physically close
to the center of the Earth's mass as possible because of gravity) and (2) a
second tendency is in the opposite direction, and (3) the second tendency
"overpowers" (arg! another word choice I will probably have to defend) the
primary one, then I feel it is legitimate to state that the primary tendency
has been overcome.
>>>David Bowman: It doesn't *have* a prior intrinsic "primary" tendency. If
the bag of sugar was placed (at relative rest) near the surface of the Moon
or near Jupiter its "tendency" is *not* to be "as physically close to the
center of the Earth's mass as possible". If the bag was placed in near Earth
orbit around the Earth it also doesn't have this "tendency". If the bag is
initially moving away from the Earth above the atmosphere at a speed greater
than 11 km/s then its "tendency" is to continue to increase its distance from
Earth forever.
****************************
DNAunion: And in every single one of your counter instances, you have gone
out of your way to make sure the conditions are unusual. Teeter-totters do
not exist on the Moon or Jupiter. How many bags of sugar are in orbit around
the Earth? Even if one or two exist in the Space Station, what do those bags
of sugar have to do with bags of sugar on a see-saw in a playground? What
cannons have shot bags of sugar out of Earth's orbit?
Come on - it is clear I was talking about bags of sugar on a see-saw here on
Earth. I also made it clear to no unusual forces (you know, like rockets
accelerating bags of sugar past the Earth's escape velocity) were influencing
the system.
**********************************
>>>David Bowman: *If* the bag was to be placed on the Earth's surface at
rest relative to it, then it *would* have the tendency you claim.
**********************************
DNAunion: Exactly! And where did my analogy place the bag of sugar??? On
or within 5 to 10 ft of the Earth's surface.
**********************************
>>>David Bowman: But if it were placed on the end of a previously balanced
teeter-totter while another weight of greater than 10 lbs was placed on the
other end, then, again, its "tendency" would be different.
************************************
DNAunion: I disagree. A bag of sugar near the Earth's surface - under
NORMAL conditions (no supermassive blackholes or Jupiter etc. passing near
by) - still would have the TENDENCY to take up a position as close to the
Earth's center of mass as possible. Its BEHAVIOR could differ from its
tendency were another tendency -produced by another bag of sugar - coupled to
its primary tendency by, say, a see-saw.
*************************************
>>>David Bowman: The bag's behavioral "tendency" is relative to the
circumstances it finds itself in.
************************************
DNAunion: You are still trying your best to fuse/equate the words behavior
and tendency (i.e., your use of "behavioral 'tendency'"). I am sorry, but
they can be different. I have provided material from mainstream sources that
state this.
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