From: heintzelman-george@CS.YALE.EDU (George Heintzelman)
Subject: Re: Taeis: co-op creation of internally-realistic fic world
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1992 01:23:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.151347.4335@bb1t.monsanto.com> bjgaed@bb1t.monsanto.com writes:
>In article <1992Jul31.145333.21447@cs.yale.edu>, heintzelman-george@CS.YALE.EDU (George Heintzelman) writes:
>>>
>> 	Sheesh, talk about cynicism. Everything being consistent might
>> mean that everything is knowable (I'm not sure that it has to, but
>> I'll let it slide), but that doesn't mean that the characters
>> inhabiting that world, or those reading about it, know everything....
>> 	I hope THIS world is logically consistent. If it isn't, then
>> science may as well give up, and I'm out of a job...but humantiy, even
>> taken together, is FAR from knowing everything about it, I'm sure you
>> would agree.
>
>On sober (?) reflection, perhaps I did over-react to that "logically 
>consistent" phrase.  However, since when is THIS world logically 
>consistent?  Perhaps on the macro scale much of the time, but there is 
>still chaos to contend with.  This does not put scientists out of a 
>job by any means.  There are still useful models which describe 
>physical systems pretty well.  But I think the idea that the universe 
>is logically consistent is an *assumption*.  If THIS world is 
>logically consistent then the *statisticians* are out of a job.  8{)
	Yes, it is an assumption. I think I made that reasonably clear
(I HOPE its consistent...then again, I probably should know better
than to assume such things get through, this *IS* USENET.) And no,
scientists are out of a job -- science is the business of finding the
laws (read: consistencies) behind the world and applying them. 
	It seems to me that we have a different definition of
consistent. To me, chaos is quite logically consistent -- it is merely
the rapid divergence of end results based on small changes in initial
conditions. Nothing there which doesn't conflict with the consstent
laws governing physics. (Yes, I'm a physics-type. :)

>
>I agree that humanity is far from knowing everything.  It may not be 
>possible to know everything.  I defer to Douglas Hoffstadter at this 
>point as _Goedel, Escher, Bach..._ did a far better job on that issue 
>than I would ever hope to even comment on.
	Excellent book, I agree. :)
>
>>>Nobody in such a world would do any of those logically inconsistent 
>>>things we humans do like falling in love and then throwing it away, or 
>>>ignoring the telephone bill, or religion, or getting up early in the 
>>>morning to trade words with a bunch of netters, or reading science 
>>>fiction, or ...  .
>> 	Um, no. A logically consistent world doesn't mean that the
>> people in it behave logically, just that they make sense. 
>
>Could you elaborate on the difference between "behave logically" and 
>"make sense"?
	Sorry, that was sort of unclear.  Probably because what I'm
thinking is a little unclear, too. The distinction I'm trying to make
is that between people who are always rational (unheard of in this
world, even for the most rational of us) and those who are in some way
understandable...that is with drives and motivations, leading to
actions, with all the stupidities and irrationalities of humanity; but
that the crazinesses of the people be UNDERSTANDABLE. 
	That is....a human being in love does not behave in logical
ways (at least, not usually. ;) However, she is understandable to us.
An alien lifeform explained in an SF book can be utterly
incomprehensible at first, but if the author has done a good job, all
of its actions flow reasonably from the premises made about the
biology and situations of the being. It is cultures and
peoples like that that that Taeis is hoping to come up with.

>>>A little application of Occam's razor please.
>> 	How does this apply to any of the above?
>
>Of what use is such a world?  What does the Taeis world and the works 
>derived therefrom hope to accomplish?  To entertain?  O.K., fair 
>enough.  Perhaps to illuminate our world by placing elements of it in 
>a new context?  Perhaps to illuminate our world by juxtaposing 
>elements of it with contrasting elements of the Taeis world?
	Good questions, but not Occam's razor. Occam's razor is just
that given any two otherwise indistinguishable alternatives, the one
you should choose is the one that makes fewer assumptions.  That
doesn't apply here.
	Incidentally, and the answers to all of the questions are yes,
and anything else anyone can think of to use such a world for.  
>
>These are all perfectly good goals.  But if the creators of the Taeis
>world make *everything* consistent does the created world become so
>alien that any relationship to our world becomes meaningless?

	Uh no. The point is that in being consistent, it would be
more, not less like our world. Our world IS CONSISTENT with itself, at
least as far as we can tell.  The attempt is to create another such
that is internally consistent, for the puposes outlined above.

>Perhaps I err in assuming that any such created world could *really* 
>be consistent.  No one would ever delineate that much detail in 
>advance.
	This is a problem, yes. One approach is to have lots of
help...of course, this introduces other problems.

>
>Perhaps I err in assuming that our language, a rather blunt instrument 
>at best *certainly* not logically consistent, could ever accurately 
>describe a logically consistent world, even if such a thing could be 
>conceived.
	This is somewhat of a problem. Again, I do not see our world
as being logically inconsistent.

	Both of these problems need to be overcome, and the success of
Taeis will largely depend on how well they are overcome.

>
>I am surprised you think me cynical.  It is the inconsistency of the 
>world which is truly fascinating, the source of beauty and wonder.  To 
>me cynicism is the idea that everything *is* knowable.  
	Au contraire. The beauty of the universe (to this, apparently
different scientist) is precisely in how well it fits together, how
everything follows from a relatively small set of starting laws.
	
>Scientists (at 
>least this scientist) assume that some things are knowable and seek to 
>know those things, but they need to look to the borders of their 
>universe, the limits of their assumptions.  Logic is a system which 
>has been built up out of our world because it has proven useful for 
>describing, even predicting, that world.  Science applies lagic to the 
>physical world, to that which can be perceived with the senses.  
>Beyond those borders lie vast and largely unexplored regions.
	Uh oh. Things that can't be percieved with the senses? Are you
(a self-avowed scientist) going mystical on me? Logic, mathematics,
and physics have been developed because it fits the way our world
works.  Things that are not observable are not described by this, but
then, things that are not observable (in ANY way) have no impact on
the universe.  That is, if no one ever tries to find out if the cat is
alive or dead, that is unobserved, and it doesn't matter, and has no
influence on the course of the universe (except of course inasmuch as
the choice not to observe something is itself something which can be
observed.) 
	Anything that isn't observable is the realm of religion,
something which I refuse to go into here. :)
	Out of a matter of curiousity, what is your field? Did this
thread catch an anthropologist out of sci.anthropology?
>
>"...and then time started seriously to pass."
>--Douglas Adams, _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_
I like this quote too. :)

George Heintzelman
heintzel@cernapo.cern.ch