[extropy-chat] Reliable tech

[The Avantguardian]

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

  These things are perceived, usually
> incorrectly, to have no
> parallel in the "old" ways...but even if the
> perception is incorrect, I
> wonder - might there be a way to make some
> technology 100% reliable?

No Adrian, I believe that statistical mechanics
forbids 100% reliability. If perfection were possible
there would be no guassian curve, statistics, or error
propagation. The universe seems to require some things
be random or indeterminate depending on whether you
believe there is such a thing as randomness or if you
believe that what masquerades as randomness is
ignorance of the underlying order.

In either case, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and
the importance of initial conditions in chaos theory
conspire to thwart our certainty about anything. Of
course you are free to BELIEVE that there are things
out there that have a probability of 0 or 1, but then
that's faith. Which isn't necessarily bad, whether it
be faith in the underlying order to the universe or
that a lightbulb won't burn out when you switch it on.
Everybody invests a little faith in their lights which
is why they are so disappointed when they don't come
on. Most of the time I board an airplane, I have faith
it won't for whatever reason crash. Otherwise I could
not board it. But I KNOW that there is a definite
finite probability that it might crash just like
switching on a lightbulb can sometimes fail.
Technology and physiology both eventually fail.
Vigilance, fastidiousness, and redundancy are the only
solutions to entropy. And no matter how well one lays
ones plans, foolproofs ones technology, hones ones
measurements, and tightens ones estimates, the
universe always gets the final say. But in the end I
am comfortable with that because the universe usually
rules in my favor.
       

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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