Re: Uncertainty

[Bruce McFarling <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:46:51 -0600, "Forstater, Mathew"
<ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>, wrote, under the title,
"RE: uncertainty",

>Of course, thinking about it, it must actually be a combination of the
>two.  If we were all-knowing, then historical time woudn't matter.

Historical time matters MORE when limits to information processing
are ignored.  Even an "omniscient" being IN historical time does
not know the future, because the future is not determined by the
present -- constrained, yes, but not DETERMINED.

>Since we are not all-knowing, reality would have to be structured
>in a particular way for our sense organs and brain power to be
>capable of calculating probabilities or predicting the future
>with some degree of reliability?

This is falling into a dichotomy ... all you need to be able to
predict "some" aspects of the future to "some" degree of
reliability "some" distance into the future is that the divergence
between the internal model and the external reality is not "too"
fast, "too" frequently ... as long as the discrepency is "low
enough" "much" of the time, then periodically monitoring the
discrepency and resetting the model to fit the current situation
still gives an advantage to anticipation, EVEN THOUGH you do not
have the information required to predict with certainty, and EVEN
IF the future is intrinsically indeterminate.

Actually, EITHER epistemological or ontological uncertainty are
sufficient -- when one, the other, or both are important factors,
then true uncertainty is present in an important way.


Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx