[Martin Taylor 970408 10.11]
[Bruce Gregory (970407.1230 EST)]
Martin Taylor 970405 0700
As I see it, the whole _point_ of control is to reduce the information
about the outer world that is reflected in the inner world.
What a _strange_ way of looking at purposeful behavior. The
Heaven's Gate People found a solution that seems consonant with
this idea...
How do you figure that? They did absolutely their opposite, removing the
dissociation between the entropy of the outer world and that of their
bodies. Their bodies are now decomposing, aren't they? The inner world
now is beginning to be affected by states of the outer world that were
kept outside so long as their control hierarchy was acting effectively.
Look, we are made of structures and molecules that are thermodynamically
unstable in the environment in which we live. We can survive only by
shutting out sufficient of the entropy of the outer world to maintain
some structural stability. We can't do this by immuring ourselves in
closed shells--the entropy enclosed inside the shell at closure would
be too high. We have to do it by continuously exporting entropy to the
outer world, using energy that passes into us in a low-entropy state and
out in a higher entropy state.
The missing link here is the identification of entropy with information.
That link was made in a tutorial message on entropy I posted a couple of
years ago. It might not be conventional to accept that entropy and
information are interchangeable (as once it was). But the argument is
based on much more than a formal similarity of equations (I'm putting
together Web pages on that topic as part of the set on economics, but
nothing is yet ready for public display, in part because I've spent most
of the last 10 days trying to recover from a series of crashes).
Anyway, the point is that death eliminates the barrier that prevents
the states of the outer world (information about the outer world) being
reflected in the inner world. That barrier is _control_, and control
seems to me to be the defining characteristic of life.
Martin
[From Bruce gregory (970408.1345 EST)]
Martin Taylor 970408 10.11
The missing link here is the identification of entropy with information.
That link was made in a tutorial message on entropy I posted a couple of
years ago. It might not be conventional to accept that entropy and
information are interchangeable (as once it was). But the argument is
based on much more than a formal similarity of equations (I'm putting
together Web pages on that topic as part of the set on economics, but
nothing is yet ready for public display, in part because I've spent most
of the last 10 days trying to recover from a series of crashes).
I look forward to seeing this material.
Anyway, the point is that death eliminates the barrier that prevents
the states of the outer world (information about the outer world) being
reflected in the inner world. That barrier is _control_, and control
seems to me to be the defining characteristic of life.
Needless to say, I agree. I apparently misunderstood what you
meant by "inner world", which I interpreted as "perceptual
world".
Bruce Gregory
[From Rick Marken (970308.1110 PDT)
Martin Taylor (970405 0700) --
the whole _point_ of control is to reduce the information
about the outer world that is reflected in the inner world.
Bruce Gregory (970407.1230 EST) --
What a _strange_ way of looking at purposeful behavior.
You're telling me! But it shows the lengths to which people will go
to make their understanding of PCT fit their existing beliefs. Rather
than admit to himself that information theory was a dead end on the road
to understanding behavior, Martin tries to fit information theory
into the Procrustean bed of PCT, often with amusing results (as in
his statement above). Such are the ways of hierarchical control
systems;-)
Martin Taylor (970408 10.11) --
death eliminates the barrier that prevents the states of the outer
world (information about the outer world) being reflected in the
inner world. That barrier is _control_, and control seems to me
to be the defining characteristic of life.
Stupendous. Martin has shown that information theory combined with
PCT predicts that we will all be informed about everything after we die.
I sure hope he's willing to do the research on this one because I'M
NOT!!!
Best
Rick