[FRIAM] Gross incompetent maggots concast

[glen]

Ha! Well, that kinda misses the point, which was, in part, a criticism of "monism" and "reductionism", on top of telling Gil he needs to write 2 checks, one each to mechanistically *different* providers.

Another part of the "2 is 1; 1 is none" refers back to things like the epiphenomenator and the many-to-many nature of gen-phen maps and Rosen's definition of complexity. The reason I pointed to the systems engineering wiki rather than, say, a standard engineering definition of "redundancy" is because (finally) systems engineering is coming around to an understanding of plectics (cf https://www.incose.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/complexity-primer-overview.pdf?sfvrsn=0), whereas regular ole engineering is still dragging its feet.

In our push for "elegant" solutions to complex things, we are building epistemically *fragile* models of the world. But when we have multiple mechanisms that can fill equivalent roles within a model, those models are robust. Then the model is only as fragile as it's most monist component. This is why, I think, biology will always be a "special science". The saying "life is messy" is more than just a statement about personal resilience. It's an identity. Messy is Life. And Life is Messy. If you *think* you have a universal hammer, you're wrong. What's actually happened is you're incapable of seeing non-hammer things.

So ... your progression below is exactly backwards. Many is not fewer. Many is reality. Fewer is fantasy. And the fewest few, 1, is nothing.

On 7/21/22 09:12, Steve Smith wrote:
> 2 is 1, 1 is none <glen>  or in the extreme "many is fewer... until it is also none".

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