From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn!utcsri!rpi!gatech!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nlc Tue Jun 23 13:21:27 EDT 1992
Article 6336 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis)
Subject: Re: Vitalism and Intellectuaism
Message-ID: <1992Jun21.085738.22991@news.media.mit.edu>
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References: <1992Jun11.181124.19003@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> <488@tdat.teradata.COM> <1992Jun20.200712.2918@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1992 08:57:38 GMT
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In article <1992Jun20.200712.2918@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> rwmurphr@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Robert W Murphree) writes:
>>|If the virus-other species system is sufficiently complicated to defy
>>|simulation by symbol manipulating devices, which maybe it is, then maybe
>>|understanding is also something which requires something more than 
>>|symbol manipulation-being as such or whatever.
>
>>It is certainly beyond the capabilities of currently available computational
>>devices, but is this an intrinsic limitation, or just a current engineering
>>limit?  The answer is not clear.  (There is *also* the fact that we do not
>>know enough about the virus-cell system to fully specify the parameters of
>>the simulation).
>
>When I think the the defintion of "state" in control theory (EE control
>theory).  I think of an ideal system which, to the degree to which you
>specify the parameters of the system ( R's and L'c and C's , masses and
>distances, or whatever) you can specify the future state of the sytem, 
>given the initial conditions to any desired accuracy (see Karl Popper's
>definition of experimental determinimism). I just cannot think of how
>one would do this with living things, even a bacteria. 
> 
> If the "state"
>is living versus dead, it seems no matter how carefully you specify the
>situation, you can almost always wriggle out of any given prediction of
>this state.  Physicians make their money trying to predict and effect
>this living or dead state and as an ex-medical technician, let me tell
>you its hard to do.  
> 
>I suppose the current work to predict the tertiaru
>teriary structure of proteins from primary sequence structure is an
>example of how this sort of attempt to find a "state" is going.  I hope
>a molecular biologist will read this and comment. My reading of the 
>work in the problem of predicting tertiary protein structure is that
>the process of how proteins fold is so complicated that describing them
>is more like geology (trying to find a few generalizations from vast
>amount of knowledge-a little pattern recognition)than physics or
>computer science. I know very little of the current science in this
>area so watch out.  




