Re: Darwinism is "just like gravity or somethin'..."


Andrew Arensburger wrote:
> John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > All sciences are, in the
> > end, physics.
>
> I think a lot of it is a matter of coming up with the most
> useful and compact descriptions. Yes, fuzzy logic reduces to
> probability theory, but some results are easier to derive and express
> in fuzzy logic terms than in probabilistic terms. Likewise, all
> computer programs can be implemented as a Turing machine, but I'd much
> rather write a line of Perl or C than 100,000 symbolic TM states.

Evolution can modeled in what ever program language you choose. It's an
iterative system that requires many different parallel systems running
at once (you population) that interact with an environment. For example
from similair models we know that the randomness needed in future
offspring is low and that to high a rate of mutation leads to an
unstable population. In system terminology it's a 'complex system'.

Do a search for artificial life and you'll come across many examples.

>
> > The problem lies in defining a "special" science, as they are
> > called, in terms of those aspects of physical reality that happen to be
> > instantiated in a given time or place (geology, biology, psychology, etc).
> > They only cover a small part of All Possible Physics, and they can be very
> > complex.
>
> I like to think of math as the study of All Possible Physics,
> of which actual physics is a special case. At least, for purposes of
> fitting math into the hierarchy of sciences.
> But math is a degenerate science, the same way that a straight
> line is a degenerate parabola or that hydrogen is a degenerate metal.
> Yes, it kinda fits, but math is missing a lot of what we think of as
> being part of science (experiment, observation, asymptotic
> approximation of truth, etc.).

I think maths is different enough to science that it deserves it's own
treatment. In maths you can have absolutes whilst in science you can't.
You don't need real world objectivity for maths to work as well.

Stew Dean

.

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