From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: Re: Philosophy underlying LO? LO274
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 95 23:24 PST
Jim Michmerhuizen writes in LO260:
> In an earlier post today I alluded to how every tiniest fact participates
> or plays a role in an infinity of hierarchies and structures - not just
> one. Some of these structures, for example, are "all of the _FALSE_
> theories about the nature of the universe" (due credit here to Jorge Luis
> Borges even if I _can't_ pronounce his name). There's no experiment
> _within_ the facts that can force, by deductive logic, some interpretation
> _of_ the facts.
Actually, there are some industrial grade thinkers that concur with
your statement, for example the logician, Rudy Rucker. He elaborates
on the subject in:
@book{Rucker,
address = "Boston, Massachusetts",
author = "Rudy Rucker",
publisher = "Houghton Mifflin Company",
title = "Mind Tools",
year = 1993}
(which is a very good book, BTW,) and presents some very formidable
arguments in support of your premiss. Such systems that exhibit this
phenomena are usually called fractal or non-linear dynamic systems. It
does indeed appear that social institutions are such a system. As an
interesting side bar, and case in point, in a biography of George
Washington, recently aired on PBS, it was mentioned that liberal
revolution that swept the western world in the late 1700's was created by
Washington. As the story goes, he was a young officer, and in command of
some French troops that had captured some Native American Indians. Do to
some mix up in procedural issues, one of the Indians was shot by a French
guard, which caused an uprising in the Indian Nation. To exercise
authority over the situation, the British had to send the army, which over
extended the British, financially, so they imposed taxes on the Colonist
to pay for the intervention. The Colonist rebelled against the taxes, and
had to enlist the help of the French Government, against the British, to
resolve the issue militarily. To pay for the intervention by the French
Army, the French Government had to raise taxes on the French populace, who
rebelled, overthrowing the Government. And, Liberal Democracies were
installed in both countries.
Washington was not known for being a meticulous manager, but this
seemingly inconsequential and singular management indiscretion, in this
instance, had significant and far reaching ramifications that were in no
way foreseeable.
John
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/