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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Randomness is a human concept (was Re: Time is a human concept)
Message-ID: <D01ItE.3KE@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <CzqpzI.8x0@unocal.com> <3b87dp$g0c@cascade.pnw.net> <CzzwG9.Iny@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <3befql$ob0@manuel.anu.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 17:48:49 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <3befql$ob0@manuel.anu.edu.au>,
Andrew Christy <christy@rschp2.anu.edu.au> wrote:
>In article <CzzwG9.Iny@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>In article <3b87dp$g0c@cascade.pnw.net>, Don Edwards <warrl@pnw.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Also the periodic table of the elements.  An alien species could of
>>>course present the information in a slightly different way (e.g. put
>>>hydrogen on the right and helium on the left, as would probably
>>>be done by humans if the table had been figured out in a Semetic
>>>culture -- or with hydrogen at the top left and helium at the bottom
>>>left if it had been a Chinese culture); but the basic structure is 
>>>compelled by the information to be presented -- and if the information 
>>>presented is *different*, it's *wrong*.
>>>
>>Pure speculation, with no empirical support. In fact it easy to see how
>>wrong it could be. If the aliens based their classification on a number of
>>nucleons in the atomic nucleus (and why not?) then their table of elements
>>would look very different. And lifeforms with a lifespan very different from 
>>ours might see the universe in a more different way yet.
>>
>   I agree with the last sentence, Andrzej (how does a mayfly see the world?
>or a sequoia?), but I'm afraid your proposed alien re-arrangement of the
>elements is unlikely. Number of protons correlates with chemical and
>physical properties. A given atomic weight may be shared by isotopes of
>several different elements, and doesn't correlate with anything else
>except...weight. Not particularly useful.
>
>Have to agree with Don on this one.
>
You have watched (and taken seriously) too many Star Trek (OG and NG) episodes
:-) and think of aliens in too anthropomorphic terms. What if they lived
inside stars and were made of pure energy? Actually some lifeforms like these 
are also suggested in ST (OG&NG). Would they care about chemical properties at
human scale temperatures? Or rather about nuclear properties? Free your
imagination and you will realize that there is no reason for our way of seeing
reality (universe) to have anything particularly unique about it.

>                             Andy C
>
Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
