studiot

Well I voted for my villain of the piece in my last post.

Nor does anyone else although there have been many suggestions over the years. The best we can do on a Science site is to try andsort out the terminology. Eternity refers to time. Any proposed universe without both of these is a pretty weird place, nothing like the universe we see. So yes so long as there is time there will be space. But I expect you mean is space infinite ? That is a good question, although we actually don't know the answer. We do know that there are models of space in which it is finite but has no boundary. No boundary means it has no end like the surface of the Earth, you can keep going round and round it forever because that has no end.

If you mean the promotion of greed then I don't think you can lay that at the door of Science (or Philosophy either). Personally I would look towards Big Business (though not all of it). But everyone is entitled to their opinion, even a Gloucestershire supporter. 🙂

I think that's a bit of an unfair response So I am going to give a good faith +1 towards a new start to Holmes. BTW I know what a non self aware machine is, - my lawnmower. I have a very sore toe from kicking it into action. But I am not really sure what constitutes a self aware machine. 🙂

Thank you. And are you happy (satisfied) with that self referential definition ?

Except the first one ? Interesting +1

Not being a day to day electrical inspector, I have only occasional experience of this in my work, and under rather specialised circumstances as well. However when we moved into our present house (built in 1938/39) I did face a somewhat similar situation. The previous owner had advertised the house as 'rewired'. This meant that someone had replaced almost all the old round pin standard sockets with square pin types. But on the original power circuitry wiring. Many of the old cables entering the back of the new sockets were in the same bare condition you describe above. Really scary. Conversely the lighting circuit cables had been replaced but the owner did not like the look of modern switches and fittings so fitted the new cables into the existing fittings, but clipped the earth conductor short as the old lighting system had no earth provision. I was sort of glad to have the opportunity to rip it all out and start again.

I am not convinced. It must depend upon your use of the word emerge or emergent or emergence. For instance I would say that the general English expression The Moon emerged from behind the clouds is too wide and open (and just plain wrong) for the Scientific use. But lots of (scientific) folks use it in different ways. As far as matrix multiplication goes we know the commutator is sometimes zero sometimes not zero thus there are circumstances when there is an emergent consequence and sometimes not, depending upon circumstances To me it is the reliable emergence of whatever phenomenon under the some repeated circumstances but equally relaible failure to emerge under different repeated circumstances. I look forward to your definition to match future use against.

Rewarding job, though I don't know where you are it can be interesting to swop regulatory stories. Did you know that in the UK it is illegal for the consumer to connect the neutral to earth, whereas in the US it is illegal not to ?

I thought I had added in the example using space and time. In quantum mechanics by themselves, neither space nor time are emergent as they are a necessary part of the fundamental principles and equations. However the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is emergent from this Mathematics as the matrices involved ar non commutative. ie A.B is not equal to B.A where A and B are the relevant matrices, involving space / time. So (B.A. - A.B) is non zero and gives us the Uncertainty Principle

Thank you for your input including this, where you seem to be the only one that fully understands English. +1 Great or greater means enlarged (in some way) as in Great Britain, Greater London, Greater Manchester and so on. I suppose on the questionable principle that 'bigger is better' it has also come to mean better or wonderful (in the sense of very good). The scope and reach of Science has far outstripped that of Philosophy in modern times.

This would not be a short circuit however. It is an example of an overload condition, nor is the intentional use of the heating effect of cuurent in electric heaters, light bulbs etc. Peter has asked specificially about the relationship of short circuits, which are unintentional connections, to heating. There are other undesirable effects of short circuits (without necessarily causing large currents) but which can cause danger to life. This happens when an exposed conductor becomes unintentionally connected to a live supply and then a danger if touched. Metal cases, knobs suffer from this.

So now we are on the same page. There is a great deal of modelling in its widest sense going on in Science. There is also a great deal of data collection and collation. Not all of this is mathematical, or has any significant mathematical content. For instance. A scientific investigation migh look into what materials (chemicals) were used by a certain painter in his studios in the late 1500s. More could be developed from this data, including some (slightly) mathematical comparisons to test an offered painting as being by this artist, or to suggest cause of death or to develop a model of available materials at that time. Edit Two further examples. It is common parlance to say "The Moon emerged from (behind) the clouds". Scientific use is more restriced than this common English use and would not say this was an emergent phenomenon. However some quantum phenomena (eg Heisenberg's Uncertainty Princilple) are emergent from the Mathematics of matrix algebra where A.B is sometimes not equal to B.A Where A and B are matrices representing certain quantities.

Arguing , discussing whatever. You are putting your points in the proper way. 🙂 It is not, however, my understanding of the meaning of the term, 'emergent'. We do not consider heat, resulting from friction to be 'emergent', although it is the result of that friction. There has to be something special about the circumstances that allows or brings about 'emergence', so that it would not happen in different circumstances. Consider a pile of bricks for instance. If you stack them in any old random way, the pile will soon fall over. But if you configure them in one particular way you will achieve a very strong and stable self supporting structure called an arch. This property sensitive to configuration which is the controlling circumstance in this case. Configuration is not more, or less 'fundamental' than the bricks themselves or their other properties.

You asked for some I gave you some. I did not say there were not plenty more. Engineering Science is largely about the synthesis of that which does not (yet) exist.

Yes today we use these terms differently from what was done in the past. Which is what I said.

You got there before me. At Cambridge, Natural Philosophy was changed to Natural Sciences in 1851.

can be trained = external intervention.

Of course. Our Earth has an mean temperature of around 15oC (NASA), though the actual value does not matter. There does not exist an Earth with an average temperature of say 18oC. Yet Climate Science is studying such a hypothetical Earth. IOW is is studying that which is not. Sometimes the model we have from analysis such as a simple formula for kinetic energy or momentum can be used to model that which is not for instance the kinetic energy of a 750kg car travelling at 1,000mph. As an aside most questions at the end of chapters in Science textbooks model that which is not.

I understand that you and perhaps iNow limit your definition of Science to analysis and only to analysis of what is. I happen to hold a wider definition. One of the biggest efforts in Science ATM is the study of what is not.

Rome split from Ancient Greece and became a greater nation. America split from England and became a greater nation. What we now call Physics and Chemistry used to be called Natural Philosophy. So Where, When, How and Why did Science split from Philosophy and do we think they are now the greater discipline ?

'But' suggests you disagree with some part of my thoughts. The rest suggests you think there is little else but models involved in Science and perception but 'models'. I think there is far more to both (as I said) so I am starting another thread to discuss this.

A good question. Yes I think the substrate has most to do with it. But also the nature of that substrate. Don't get hung up on pentiums. They were just a quick example off the top of my head. However the analogy can be pursued further. Unlike cells, transistors have never been known to club together to form more complex circuits. They were placed together by human design, first as dual transistors, then as simple 'integrated circuits', then as LSI (large scale integration) and then as VLSI (very large scale integration). But in no case did the simple placement and connection give rise to anything other than the deterministic output of the designers and then only only their control with the supply of external equipments. There was a process of gradual deliberate but controlled growth in size and complexity. There was no sudden awakening Skynet style. The internet as we know it includes all the satellites, microwaves, fibre optic and copper connections laid over two centuries as well as the support switching stations and so on. Yet the complexity and number of connections is still many orders of magnitude less than that of the human brain and as I already pointed out, possesses no evolutionary capability.

There is a lot more to both Science and perception that this. It really is. +1 for this and for demonstrating proper respectful discussion. But I think it deserves its own thread away from heated discussion and potential heckling.

Can you tell me what you understand 'emergent' to mean ? Perhaps with some example(s) of actual 'emergence'.