Posted by Reilly Atkinson on September 26, 1999 at 21:56:09:

In Reply to: Re: UTK -- 2 of 2 Object Constancy posted by Muncie on September 25, 1999 at 18:52:14:

Sir -- Your postings are quite wonderful, nicely written and nicely reasoned. It turns out to be the case, however, that some of the issues you raise have been concerns of the physics community for years. Some of these issues have been and still are fiercely debated, particularly in light of the wrinkles brought about by quantum theory. And, to a very substantial degree these debates are couched in terms of state changes, as in systems engineering. While Mike chooses to disagree, he is simply using the language of systems engineering -- state changes -- as the basis for his UTK.

Your brain certainly undergoes a state change when renaming a rose, and probably little else changes.(Technically the rose could change: as you rename, the neural processes cause electromagnetic radiation, some of which could be absorbed by the rose, slightly raising the rose's temperature.) However, with regard to context or culture, if you take some old&well established management ideas, along with some IT approaches, and rename them Knowledge Management, you most certainly can change business culture.

You have come very close to one of the major ways of describing the evolution of the universe. Your triad taking Universe A to Universe B is, in fact, called a transition mapping. The movie is A->B->C->D..., the unfolding of so called differential mappings into a macroscopic one. As text books in dynamics discuss, dynamical evolution can nicely be described in terms of sequences of still pictures ( this is an idea that goes back at least a hundred years ago)Why this desciption describes an "acausal" universe puzzles me. The type of dynamical change you describe is called causal or deterministic in the physics literature -- going back to Newton and Leibnitz. The real trick is how to work with this state change approach in a quantum universe - very difficult indeed.

Your discussion of this matter is most impressive, and corresponds to common scientific practice in so called classical physics. To the extent triads reflect mappings, they are commonplace in physics

Your discussion of change vs. constancy hits the mark. My only quibble is that states undergoing change usually contain many irredicible components -- a burning gas is composed of molecules, ions, and free elctrons. The molecules dissassociate into atoms or ions; the atoms and ions undergo transitions from energy levels to energy levels, but the electrons, protons and neutrons stay constant -- they don't change into other things. It is the constant things that set the stage for change & provide a baseline against which to measure change.

My final point is: the issues you raise have been around and discussed for a long time. To the extent that resolutions are possible, the major clues will be empirical, and not directly verbal.
(As an example, the unstable perceptions of the wire-frame or Necker cube are being studied empirically by wide range of cognitive scientists and neuro physiologists)

Respctfully,
Reilly Atkinson

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Some ideas Muncie 19:30:45 9/30/99 (1)
  • Re: a Revision to Some ideas Muncie 01:14:28 10/01/99 (0)
• Re: UTK -- 2 of 2 Object Constancy mike cahill 23:09:13 9/26/99 (5)
  • Blackboard Sitting On My Shouder Martyn R Jones 04:03:59 9/28/99 (4)
    • Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road Martyn R Jones 06:01:11 9/29/99 (3)
      • Re: Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road mike cahill 15:10:06 9/29/99 (2)
        • Re: Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road C.J. Sekhar 17:11:26 9/29/99 (1)
          • Humor and Explanation Martyn R Jones 04:35:22 9/30/99 (0)

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