Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jl3j+ From: jl3j+@andrew.cmu.edu (John Robert Leavitt) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: intelligence and the initial conditions of the universe (BANG!!!) Message-ID:Date: 16 Aug 89 14:55:05 GMT Organization: English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 27 I believe that chaos fits in somewhere between emptiness and Taosim... Seriously, though, just because something is overhyped does not mean that there is not something to it (just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you). "Chaos: The Making of a New Science" is an interesting book that can get your mind looking into a bunch of dark nooks and crannies you may have ignored before... Chaos has not yet been nicely theorized, true. But that should not be the ultimate criteria for whether something is useful. Newtonian physics is incomplete since it does not account for relativity. But, Newtonian physics was still useful... An even better metaphor is in astronomy... primitive cultures explained the movements of the stars with Gods and the like. They did not have the motion of heavenly bodies nicely theorized into a neat tidy bundle... but they were still able to use that motion to plan crop plantings and harvests, etc. Engineering CAN be useful without a science to back it up.... it is more useful WITH the science, but the science is not necessary... -John. +-----------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------+ | US-Snail: 5715 Elsworth Ave. D-2 / You're the fastest runnner, / _ | | Pittsburgh, PA 15232 / but you're not allowed to win. / / \ | | E-Mail: jl3j@andrew.cmu.edu / -Howard Jones / /- -\ | | Phone: (412) 441-7724 +--------------+-----------------+ __| |__ | +------------------------------+ / sigh / / \_/ \ | | All these moments will be lost in time... +-----------------+--------------+ | like tears in the rain. -Batty / I speak only for myself... hah! | +------------------------------------------+----------------------------------+