From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Tue Apr  7 23:23:52 EDT 1992
Article 4889 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: On functionalism and implementation
Message-ID: <499@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 92 21:50:11 GMT
References: <2442@ucl-cs.uucp> <531@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 17

In article <531@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
|See my article, The Evolution of Peer Polities, in the Proceedings of the
|Cambridge Conference on Dynamic Modelling and Human Systems, S. E. van der
|Leeuw, ed., Edinburgh University Press, 1992. I demonstrate that there are
|significant chaotic processes in the evolution of social systems. One
|implication is that Asimov's "psychohistory" is not feasible.
|   Harry

Not necessarily, a chaotic sysem may still have stable statistical features.
I suspect that some form of 'physchohistory' might be built upon such a
basis, though it might not be quite as precise as Asimov portrays it.
Rather like weather forecasting, where broad trends over long periods can
be accurately predicted, but detailed, short-term predictions are difficult
or impossible - note: weather is also a chaotic system.
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)


