Re: Lizard engines and rat engines

Perplexed in Peoria <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote or quoted:
> "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?

Optimisation problems can have criteri that pull in multiple
conflicting directions at once.

However in this case, the issue is probably not too significant:
the maximum entropy guys are mostly saying that their schemes
are significant far from equilibrium - where there's a chance of
self-organising systems forming on the available energy gradients.

By contrast, Prigogine's idea applies under just the opposite set of
circumstances - when the system is near to equilibrium - so perhaps
there's not much chance of a conflict of maximands.
--
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