Ooops! My mistake! Point taken ... Controls in Closed Systems?

Posted by Eudaemonic Pie on Feb 09, 2002 at 16:06
pppa20-resalecarsoncity1-1r7409.dialinx.net (4.16.206.49)

Re: DA is the D.A. (Dumb A**?) (Dale)

Thanks Dale.

My reading comprehension went to hell with my spelling.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Excellent point you make about resource allocations.

You went on and wrote, "We don't have enough evidence yet to predict any long term trend. Yes, CO2 reflects infrared and so should increase surface temperatures .... [and] We aren't even changing temperature as much as the CO2 change would predict."

On controlled systems, just a point: I've done some consulting on flow-control issues at institutions ranging from Raychem, Genentech, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Lawrence Liv. Lab, some wastewater treatment facilities, and blah, blah, blah – on questions of system dynamics and controls under conditions when the s*** hits the fan, that is, when things go stochastic. And you've got to roll up your cusps and face the flow! It's easy to say (just say: not prove) that control conditions could (theoretically) be framed in terms of one's favorite choice of maths. But, when the flipping valve breaks (say steam) in the tiniest pinhole aperture (not seen) and releases a tiny steam jet, and the steam jet instantly severs an blinded engineer's arm, cutting the damn arm off, in a millisecond, then control issues aren't theoretical math games anymore.

Now, if the enviro is a closed system, then we can theoretically tease out all the hidden/latent variables and we can find steam-leaks in advance by using maths aimed to detect latent variables in systems with any structural stability.

But, what if the environment isn't closed .... ? How to get the flipping variables? – and how to get the evidence you're looking for?

I'm lost as hell.

What else can we do but like what physicists did with QM in the ‘40's when their QM experiments gave infinite results, and they had to renormalize by adding controls back into the science in order to get useful (non-infinite) results?

And then we add "interpretations" (ack!) of our models: "interpretations" (e.g., your CO2) seem required at very least (please correct me if I'm wrong) in the sense of correlating our social policies to our science, no?

Pretend (I know this is stupid) CO2 goes above whatever limit we all agree fits our social policies as interpreted, but by then, it's catastrophic (out of control), except that a few weird mutant humans breathe it, thrive on it, repopulate, and we're back off to the races .. a closed system?


My questions aren't adversarial. I'm just honestly as hell stumped.


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