Danpech
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Member # 163
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posted 07. June 2003 02:53
The term 'irreducibly complex' (IC) means that the set to which it is used to refer is posited as being incapable of x (where x is the end, or ends, sought) if any one or more of its elements is absent.
For a static object, such as the principle of deductive validity (including things like 1+1=2), or such as the set of basic facts required to know the truth of some matter (from origins to criminal cases), I say, for a static object, it is granted that the set required for x is irreducible. But, what about for dynamic objects---objects that interact with other objects in space?
Gravity itself would seem to be IC, even though we can do something that seems to have at least some of the same effects as gravity (swinging a bucket on a rope). Can this simulated gravity fully-and-in-the-long-run replace real gravity for organisms that require gravity? I doubt it. Being a naturopath, I believe that there is always only one perfectly suitable set-sequence of means to some end for a given problem (although we do not always know all the basics of the problems we face), and that all other set-sequences are only convenient-but-temporary fixes to a disfunctional IC system.
This idea of a temporary fix does not apply, however, to static objects. There is no such thing as duct tape, metaphorically speaking, for a non-working syllogism or a fundamentally incomplete set of basic facts to a problem. So, while there is indeed such a thing as non-evolvable IC, the kind of IC pertaining to dynamic objects may end up only serving to allow them to survive when something goes wrong: They get to really use their intelligence.
Either we have a full spectrum of IC (from the kind pertaining to static objects to the kind allowing full evolvabilty as Darwin supposed), or we have a logical restriction of IC (werein the IC of static objects is the prime, Platonic example, and every other kind follows from there). The former notion of IC is symmetrical in one sense, although only by way of a process from the initial IC conditions. The latter notion of IC is symmetrical in another sense (namely, in a "like father, like son fashion"), although it does allow for a limited range of evolvability. The former notion admits of no limits, even allowing the denial of objective cognition, while the latter notion admits of all things within limits.
Or, so it seems to my disfunctioning brain. Unless, or until, I'm really fixed up right, I'll take all the duct tape I can get. Within limits.
[ 07. June 2003, 02:56: Message edited by: Danpech ]
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