Re: Set Nesting and Set Intersection Within Evolutionary Theory


;-) Here we go again.

Well, Guy, you have my sympathy. But you had to have known this
was coming. I'm just glad I didn't say that!


I understand the algebra of sets.
I understand the concept of hierarchy.
I understand the concept of tree (as a way of charting links of various
kinds between things, such as successive generations of things).
I understand the concept of nested sets somewhat... in relation to an
adjacency list model (for example in representing a personnel 'reporting'
hierarchy).
I understand that any adjacency set model -- even though it represent
something that is propagated in only one direction can be traced backward,
where there is some utility in doing so.

However, I can make no sense of any attempt to extract a concept from one of
these distinctly different kinds of models and attempt to apply it within
another. Also, if Guy makes a statement (quite valid and clear, it seems to
me) relating to the algebra of sets, and John counters it with something
relating to a nested set model, that strikes me as being comparable to
comparing how many grapes we should expect to find growing on the ends of
the thorns of a particular variety of cactus.

The vicissitudes of finding a computer programming model for a natural
phenomenon are overwhelming until and unless one can find a phenomenon
which -- for special purposes -- behaves as an independent dynamic.

The reason I say "for special purposes" is that nothing, ultimately, in the
universe behave independently from the rest of it. However, if variables
are so miniscule as to be immeasurable and insignificant for a specific
purpose, then we can treat a model as a self-sufficient, and independent
dynamic.

FOR EXAMPLE: Using Newtonian physics, we can treat Earth's moon's orbit as
being a dynamic impacted only by the net effect of Earth's gravity and the
moon's gravity, in describing a shaped pattern such that Earth may be
treated as standing still, while the moon is treated as moving in an
orbiting around it. In reality, however, the earth is orbiting the sun, the
sun is in an orbit around an epicenter of mass of this galaxy, this galaxy
is moving at a tremendous rate of speed around some epicenter not yet
determined... and a model representing ALL this action, but showing only the
paths of Earth and moon with respect to the universe's epicenter would look
to us like manifest total chaos. So, for various PURPOSES, we create our
little model which looks quite simple and actually is useful and easy to
understand. That model (treated as though Earth is standing still) not only
is inaccurate with respect to any other point and time in the universe but,
also, is not actually consistent. This is because Earth and its moon are
never, at any two moments, acting in the identical same configuration of all
the other force-sources in the universe. Nothing else is standing still.
And even the influences of other force-sources are not arriving concurrently
with their happening. Assuming that gravity travels at the same speed as
the speed of light -- the force of the sun's gravity, acting upon Earth at
ANY instant, is not a result of where the sun is now, but of where it was
some eight minutes or so previously. And the sun, Earth, Earth's moon are
impacted to some extent by gravitation that left its sources up to billions
of years ago. But this, lag effect, also can be left out of our modeling of
Earth's moon's orbit around it. Else any model, graphical or mathematical,
accounting for all the "arriving" influences at any given series of
instances, would be so complex that no human could perceive and sense to it
at all.

The upshot of all this is that any model regarding procreation over a period
of time cannot possibly take into account all sexual conceptions, all
embryological events, all organism developments, etc. Neither can a model
be useful or intelligible if it is not confined to a particular set of
variables and constants, and a particular mathematical or graphical set of
postulates and operations.

I am totally willing to consider -- as one of the reasons for my inability
to follow John's argument over whatever it is he is arguing with Guy -- that
I am simply too ignorant and too unintelligent to follow John's facts and
arguments. At the same time, I also am totally willing to consider the
possibility that the reason I am incapable of following John's facts and
arguments is because they are not followable... by virtue of the fact he may
be mixing models which are not mutually compatible. And, if the latter is
the case, then it would help me to follow John's facts and arguments if he
would take the time to inform Guy, and the rest of us, of just exactly what
aspects of
actual procreative adjacencies he is taking into account, and exactly which
model of comparison and analysis he is using ) to the exclusion of any
others which are not logically mixable with it.

Also (if my inability to follow John's points is correctible to any extent
by him) it would help me if John stated what actual, real world purpose (if
any) his proposed facts, arguments, model of arranging them,
characteristics, adjacency relationships, are intended by him to provide to
Guy, and us.

Any subject humans would attempt to communicate among themselves about can
EASILY be drawn off into areas containing epistemic barriers (unknowns and
unknowables), containing logic barriers (the limitations of logical models
to in every case predict beyond the sufficiency of the experiential facts we
have to put into it)... etc. What is most difficult, and most satisfying to
us all, is to be presented with a model fitting a stated purpose, with a
stated set of relationships (adjacent or otherwise), and capable of making
some sense of something like Earth's moon's orbit, in a way (however
fallacious) that simplifies (for the intended purpose) whatever one wishes
to convey.

g



g



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