[ExI] Minds, Personalities, and Love

[Jef Allbright]

On 6/26/07, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I wonder how you define "mystical"

Sorry, not interested in defining it here and now, was just
communicating my intention to Gordon so he might go along with it
rather than raise any of countless possible points of ambiguity or
contention.  My wording here was intentionally less crisp than usual,
in order to frame this as informal agreement-seeking in preparation
for (possibly ) highlighting a difference in our thinking. You see, we
have trust issues that I would like to overcome.

>
> (From Wikipedia) The Lorenz Attractor: "From a technical standpoint,
> the system is nonlinear, three-dimensional and deterministic"  It
> models "chaotic flow"
>
> Suppose two people are represented as the fixed points, and the third
> point (the one which traces the graph) is their mutual
> understanding/awareness of each other over time.  That either (person)
> is ever able to appreciate the graph at all is [imo] approaching as
> much description of "mystical" as any other use of the word.
>
> Of course the most concrete idea here is that of the Lorenz Attractor.
>  My concept of it is probably different than yours (the reader) as
> much as either of us has a different appreciation than the author(s)
> of that Wikipedia page.  If after those differences are resolved, the
> point I attempted to make may be nearly lost due to so much context
> dependency on my own POV.
>
> I will agree with what I thought your direction was - that objectively
> isolating the starting conditions and exposure to physical processes
> can lead to a deterministic prediction of state.

No, determinism does not imply predictability of state within a system
of this complexity, and that wasn't my objective.

Thanks for playing!

- Jef