Hello Aleks et al.,
While I agree that the use of metaphor can help us to recognize
previously unappreciated consiliences, it can be a hazardous path to
take and I think one should take great care. I also don't know of any
general rules that can help us to objectively decide who is right when
there are contesting viewpoints. I make this point because I have been
frustrated in trying to communicate with intelligent colleagues, whom I
respect, in this manner. Nevertheless, in this case I agree with your
equivalences below.
On Sep 16, 2004, at 6:24 AM, Aleks Jakulin wrote:
> Entropy and energy are particular concepts that, at an abstract
> level, can be applied to many areas. If you allow me to oversimplify:
> in
> physics, energy is, well, energy; in economics, energy is money; in
> biology,
> energy is food; in chemistry, energy is heat; in psychology, energy is
> motivation; etc.
The one term that I think applies in all of these contexts is "fuel."
You have listed the "stuff" that fuels each of these systems. From the
dissipative systems point of view, which I advocate, these fuels are
consumed and channeled to places of greater demand (vacuums of fuel).
The form of the fuel may be altered inside the system (e.g., food to
heat), or not (e.g., money to money), but work is always extracted by
the system before it is dissipated to the external environment. I
personally find Prigogine's dissipative structure viewpoint to
facilitate a great deal of consilience.
Regards
Guy Hoelzer
Department of Biology
University of Nevada Reno
Reno, NV 89557
Phone: 775-784-4860
Fax: 775-784-1302
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Sat Sep 18 00:32:34 2004
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon 07 Mar 2005 - 10:24:47 CET