Re: Lizard engines and rat engines


"Inman Harvey" <inmanh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:db8mn9$1cgt$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ... The Maximum Entropy Production principle [MEP]
> [NB: perfectly in accordance with Prigogine's 'law of minimum
> entropy production' -- the scenarios and boundary conditions are
> different] ...

Yes, I can see how that might be the case. The physically expected
result is the max over one set of variational parameters, but the
min over another set of variational parameters.

It is amusing to recall that we got to this point in the discussion
because Guy Hoelzer - thinking only of the MEP and not of Prigogine's
theorem - wanted to to interpret this maximization as teleological
(or at least to speak of it metaphorically as teleological).

But this plan fails if we are simultaneously maximizing (over one
set of parameters) and minimizing (over a different set). Is the
teleological goal to maximize or minimize?

Hmmm. Do we know of any goal-driven scheme in which the solution
is a minimum over one set and a maximum over a different set.
A "minimax"? Didn't von Neuman come up with something like that?
Two goal-directed Actors, each independently choosing from His/Her
own set of control variables, but Their goals are diametrically
opposed?

Ever have the feeling that Someone is playing games with you?
Zero sum games, no less.

Perhaps Hoelzer's only mistake was a Panglossian commitment to
teleological "monotheism".

The Manichaeans may have had the right idea, but instead of
light and darkness as the opposing principles, we want look at
dissipation and conservation. So what names do we give these
Deities? It amuses me to misinterpret "dissipation" and suggest
Dionysius as the God of dissipation. So, of course we then have
to choose his half-brother Apollo as the other Actor.

Well, I am tired of being called a control freak, math nut, and
semantic conservative. I'm going to go out tonight and get drunk.
;->


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