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Article 2366 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Scaled up slug brains
Message-ID: <60958@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 91 20:58:17 GMT
References: <60710@netnews.upenn.edu> <362@idtg.UUCP> <60805@netnews.upenn.edu> <365@idtg.UUCP>
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In-reply-to: dow@idtg.UUCP (Keith Dow)

In article <365@idtg.UUCP>, dow@idtg (Keith Dow) writes:
>>So what?  Prigogine worked on thermodynamics *far* from equilibrium.
>>Compared to _that_, near equilibrium is trivial.

>Spin glasses are not trivial.

When I speak and write English, I do so in a "context".  When I called
near-equilibrium "child's play", and when I called it trivial above,
it was in precisely this near-vs-far context.  Under no circumstances
am I trying to imply the "triviality" applies in an absolute sense.

>			        Noble laureates have worked on them and
>there are still problems with understanding them.

Well sure.  And if you did far-from-equilibrium spin glasses, you'd have
a harder time of it.

>						    I would not call 
>Prigogine work "far" from thermodynamic equilibrium.  Would you care
>to site a case?

How about his entire career?  He has several books.  Two that come to
mind are NON-EQUILIBRIUM THERMODYNAMICS and NON-EQUILIBRIUM STATISTICAL
MECHANICS.  Only a small portion of these books concern the case near
equilibrium.

Since your library access is down for the moment, you might have an
easier time finding his FROM BEING TO BECOMING.  I quote:

	It was clear when [the theorem of minimum entropy
	production] was formulated that it was strictly
	valid only in the neighborhood of equilibrium, and
	for many years great efforts were made to extend
	this theorem to systems farther from equilibrium.
	It came as a great surprise when it was shown that
	in systems far from equilibrium the thermodynamic
	behavior could be quite different--in fact, even
	*directly opposite* ....		[p88]

>>>>Try not to think.  Go look up the papers I referenced.  They contain the
>>>>references to the actual experiments that give the actual evidence for
>>>>the existence of pumped phonon condensations in biological systems.

>>>Did the experimental papers say "We have discovered a phonon pump"?  Or
>>>is this some physicist interpreting their result? It seems to be the latter.

>>It is of course the latter.  This is standard experimental physics.
>>Sort of like Einstein interpreting the photoelectric effect as being
>>caused by photons.

>In the photoelectric effect, only one person did the experiment correctly.
>This experiment was done after Einstein made his prediction.  Also the 
>experiment used light and measured electricity.  

Helmholtz and Lenard and others studied the photoelectric effect in the
two decades before Einstein's wunderjahr 1905.  Millikan made the first
precise measurements, confirming Einstein's explanation and in particular,
showing that Einstein's h was the same as Planck's h, in 1916.

>So did the biologists measure excess vibrations coming from part of
>the brain?  Did they see one neuron vibrating instead of firing?  Is
>the claim that the brain is powered by vibrations instead of
>electrical signals?

The claim is that pumped phonon condensates are rather widespread in
essentially all biological systems, and that they have certain uses,
like efficient conversion/stabilization of random energy (heat).  As
such, they would be part of the brain.

One experiment involved measuring Raman lines that varied with the age
of the E. coli.  This is very puzzling: if it's a particular molecule,
it shouldn't vary with age, and if it's a family, it's a very peculiar
ad hoc set up that no one has seen.  Yet the variation with frequency
is in accord with the pumped phonon condensate model--the frequency
depends on N, the number of phonons, which of course grows with the
size of the bacterium.

>Remember that phonons are just the quanta of material vibration.  Maybe
>you can write a book about it called "The Music of the Hemispheres."

Not just material vibration.  Dipole vibration, and even chemical cycle
variation "vibration".

That's a good book title.  I like it.

>>You are welcome to give an alternative explanation.  There are about
>>a dozen or so experiments to consider that agree with Froehlich's model.

>There are over a thousand experiments which agree with the plain old
>vanilla electrical firing.

Who says they disagree?  There are thousands of experiments on chemical
signalling also.  There is a lot going on inside our skulls.  If you have
evidence that it's all of the one and just no way could be any of the
other, post it.

>>>There is no limit to photon wavelength either, yet they manage to laser.

>>>Yes but this has nothing to do with Bose-Einsten Condensation.

>>Other than that it is one, you're right.  Photons are bosons, and
>>in a laser, they are all in the ground state.  If you have a hangup
>>about non-equilibrium thermodynamics, that's your poor education.

>Again, there is no lowest energy state of a photon.  Therefore you cannot
>have Bose-Einstein condensation. E=h/(lamda) You can pick as long a wavelength
>you want and get as low energy as you want.

Again, I am speaking English, and I am speaking English in a context.

When one talks about an electron being in the ground state of an atom,
one does not imply that there is no way ever ever for this electron
to achieve a lower energy level.  One only means that in the situation
at hand, this ground state is the lowest one that shows up.

It is the same for laser light or pumped phonon condensations.  In the
situation at hand, the bosons are occupying the lowest state available,
instead of a more expected Planck distribution.  If because of outside
influences the situation is changed, then of course the bosons can achieve
a lower state.  So what?  The model is not about all situations, just the
one.

>>I mean, really, what sort of school did you go to where they had you
>>write something 1000 times on the blackboard?

>That was your homework assignment.  

Yeah, you said so.  Where I went to school, they taught with superior
reading material.  I try to emulate that with my citations to original
papers.  I don't expect anyone to take my word for anything.

You seem to be emulating an inferior educational method.  If I identify
its origin, I might have a clue to your persistent misunderstanding of
what I'm saying.

>The trivial Nobel physics award was for automatic coastal lighting, by the
>way.  

And Prigogine got his prize in Chemistry.

>Today's trivia question, "Why is it illegal to make an exact copy
>of the United States Constitution"?

Because the United States of Apple will sue you for look-and-feel
government interface copyright infringement.  Wait, that's a tort,
not a crime.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)    If Apple owned
 NBC, they would sue Nike for comedy-interface copyright violation.  



