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.
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