Replying to LO29493 --
Dear Organlearners,
Barry Mallis <theorgtrainer@earthlink.net> writes:
>I enjoyed seeing the paradox issue in deeper, exemplified way.
>The relationship you refer to is the crux of the matter. There
>may be in every paradox a fulcrum. What's there at that point?
>Is it in fact a point, or hypothetical only?
>
>Medicines can heal and kill. It depends. Homo sapiens can kill
>and bring life. It depends.
Greetings dear Barry,
Thank you Barry for a beautiful contibution on how to seek the "balance"
between too little and too much.
I wanted to write that your "fulcrum" is for me rather "homeostasis", but
decided against replying to your contribution because it would have meant
me playing the entropy drum which i did too much of lately. The concept
"homeostatsis" is a plasmodial one for me unless i can link it with
entropy dynamics.
However, reading your contribution once again, i became aware that i
failed to see in the first reading the "bait" in the next paragraph:
>The "balanced approach" you mention may be so much a part
>of the physical universe's existence, that such movement toward
>dynamic balance/tension may be at the root of All. Entropy?
I will now take up the "bait". We have to distinguish two kinds of
balances (equilibria) -- stable and labile. A stable balance is permanent
and no entropic forces or fluxes are possible in it. A labile balance is
temporary and may have entropic forces or fluxes in it, but not one fully
developed entropic frce-flux pair. When there is an entropic force (or
possibly more than one of them) the balance is a homeostatsis. But when
there is a flux only, it is a rheostatsis. These labile balances are
nature's way to ensure that uncontroled entropy production does not flare
up and drive the system immaturely into a bifurcation.
A paradox is for me nothing else than an entropic force. It is formed by
two values of an intensive property. Having two uncomfortable values
rather than one expected value is what makes it a paradox. For example,
you write:
>A frying pan can cook up life-giving, and tasty food.
>It can also burn it beyond edibility.
The intensive property here is temperature. At a lower temp the food is
cooked tasty and at a higher temp it is burnt inedible. By scaling the
system, i.e increasing the size of the pan and the amount of food in it,
these two temperatures do not change. The difference between these
temperatures is an entropic force. A thermostat (a device based on
homeostatsis with a negative feedback loop) can be used to keep the
temperature fixed at the lower value.
So, in conclusion, i will say that a fulcrum is needed in a paradox not to
let it get out of hand and cause excessive mental chaos untimely. But i
will not go so far as to say that every paradox has a fulcrum, although we
can probably create a fulcrum for each one.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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