R. Steve Walz wrote:
Kevin Aylward wrote:

Andrew VK3BFA wrote:
"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...
Chris Carlen wrote:



here we go again, ones fanciful beliefs must fit ones prejudices -
and all alternatives can be negated by abusing your opponent.

Use what works - if a little white pill once a day works for you,
then do it. If years of counselling/psychotherapy/holistic/remove
the problem/change your diet/ works for you, then use that method.

The little white pill method works if you are surrounded by crap you
cant control,

The pill, is arguably for hard *physical* causes.

the other methods work if you can change your
environment to eliminate or reduce the stressors.

Either method is valid,

Only for its specific cause.

there is no clearly superior model (it would
have emerged by now if that was so)

In a particular instance there is often a superior method. For
certain conditions, there are well tried methods. The issue is
determining what the cause of the problem is.

One has to accept that the brain can "malfunction" for at least two
independent reasons, either by physical processes e.g. lack of some
chemical *or* some sort of brainwashing. It don't make sense to try
and fix your allocation problem in software if the problem is a
fried memory chip, neither does it make sense to add to add 100
speed up processors if the code is slow because of wait loops.

Kevin Aylward
------------------------
The chance for defective software to fix itself is about even,

No idea what your saying here. Software dont usually fix itself at all.

flip
a coin, it will still turn up heads or tails due to cause and effect.

There are at least two flaws with this argument. The first is the
obvious quantum uncertainty. A given input does not uniquely specify an
output. The second, is classical uncertainty. Large numbers of
non-linear systems are such that the outputs from a given input can not
determined because of uncertainty in the initial conditions. This is
often expressed by ill conditioned, or even by the term, chaotic
systems. The idea of making in depth predictions for anything but the
simplest of systems has been given up long ago.

Arguable, QM may or may not form a limiting aspect to human behaviour,
however classical uncertainty certainly does. The claim that, in
principle, a classical system can be deterministic, is vacuous. To all
intents and purposes, given the inputs to a complex system (e.g the
brain), the output can not be determined. The *same* input, can, in
practise, lead to *different* outputs. Indeed, the knowledge that an
equation can have more than one solution with an exact input, leads to
the reality that cause an effect is not applicable in removing an
individuals own responsibility to their own actions. For example, given
someone says hallo to them, independent of prior history, it may cause
them to shot or give them a $1. There is simply no way of making a valid
prediction.

So, the technicality of cause and effect, has little relevance in
practice. There is simply no way utilise this principle, if it were so,
I would be down at the dog track making my fortune. Your basic flaw is
that you assume that cause and effect uniquely determines an outcome
from an income. Non-linear equations simply don't have that property.

Kevin Aylward

http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
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