Re: Piorot on Madrick - Winslow's blast

["Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re. the following:

> The ontology I'm elaborating (Whitehead's - I think there are good reasons
> for believing it's also the one Keynes adopted after abandoning the one
> underpinning the argument in A Treatise on Probability) produces meanings
> for "cause" and "determine" very different from those produced by the
> ontology underpinning complexity theory.
>
> Moreover, as conceived by Whitehead, this idea leaves room for both
> self-determination ("free will") and an irreducible element of
indeterminism
> (this provides the ultimate ontological foundation for Whitehead's
> "frequency theory" of probability - a theory in which the probabilities
> constantly change because of "internal relations").  Both these aspects
mean
> that the future is not fully predetermined.

Comment:

In physics, the only meaning which I can ascribe to the concept of "internal
relations" is of a structural kind - that is to say, of the kind which
inspired the Laplacian view of physical reality in the 19th century and that
of Einstein in the 20th century.

Clearly, that is not the kind of "internal relations" envisaged by
Whitehead's "frequency theory" of probability - for in physics it is
meaningless to speak of "probabilities [which] constantly change because of
'internal relations'" when the latter are construed to relate to the
structure of physical reality as something that remains unchanged through
time.

If Whitehead - and Keynes - defined the concept of "internal relations" to
mean something which does not mean in physics, then I respectfully submit
that they must be held to have been engaged in semantic obfuscation of no
consequence.

Gunnar




----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Winslow" <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Paul Davidson" <pdavidson@xxxxxxx>; "John M. Legge"
<jlegge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: Piorot on Madrick - Winslow's blast