Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 19:26:15 +0100 (MET) From: Eivind Eklund <perhaps@yes.no> To: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newest Pentium bug (fatal) Message-ID: <199711121826.TAA26557@bitbox.follo.net> In-Reply-To: Nate Williams's message of Wed, 12 Nov 1997 00:50:34 -0700 (MST) References: <199711120718.AAA02460@rocky.mt.sri.com> <199711120731.AAA01244@usr01.primenet.com> <199711120750.AAA02612@rocky.mt.sri.com>
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> > > Why do some children raised in the exact same circumstances turn out > > > totally different? > > > > Because they are genetically predestined to do so? > > Nope, see below. > > > > Why do twins with the *exact* same DNA look and act different? > > > > Or your measure of "the exast same circumstances" lacks sufficient > > resoloution for it to be an accurate observation? There has to be > > at least a one cubic foot difference in their perspective. You > > could claim it was environmental. > > But, the environment is similar enough that in many cases their siblings > are more alike in certain behaviors to one twin than the two are alike. Of course. The empirical observation here is that twins that grow up together are more different than twins that grow up apart. Oh, blew your environment hypothesis, did I? The psychologist hypothesis is that people attempt to be unique, to be noticed. This is what best fits facts (not just the way twins behave, either). > No explanation you can come up with can 'wave away' our explain their > behavior in an acceptable manner. Hence, you cannot model human > behavior since it essentially a chaotic system. I've not yet seen you come up with a datapoint that assert this for sufficiently large samples. Many aspects of behavior can easily be explained; not all, but a very large percentage. However, I don't think either of us is really qualified to discuss this - there is a reason why the psychology of personality is a field of it's own :-) > But, even completely chaotic systems exhibit some 'patterns', which > makes is down-right frustrating when you start to rely on those > patterns, or make the assumptions that those patterns are adequate > to fully model the behavior and fall on your face. :) :) The behavior might be made up of enough small parts that it is not practically possible to do all predictions; that doesn't mean they're not deterministic :-) I can't always successfully predict what the result of running simulation programs are either, but that doesn't lead me to claim they are non-deterministic and have a soul :-) Eivind.
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