Something
I have done no research into: are there studies (physical,
philosophical) of the way in which processes or activities are
constrained into stages? Are, that is to say, not smoothly continuous
but lumpy, jerking at particular points: think of melting points,
boiling points, the different gaits of animals. Transitions that have
a definite – and often apparently arbitrary – structure. Could
there be something to be learnt from comparative studies of these
kinds of phenomena? If we know the world to be real because it
resists our desires, might such a study of constraint offer
revelations about its structure?
2 comments:
I quite enjoyed (though it's been some time) the book How Nature Works by Per Bak. He approaches complex systems through a theory of self-organized criticality (jerking at particular points of randomly accumulating force). Thumbing thru the pages: Chaos is not complexity, Dogs on an elastic string, Norwegian rice piles, Is life a self-organized critical phenomenon? Fractal behavior of traffic jams ... still looks good, I should reread it.
I hadn't heard of that so thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out. Though it's a little disappointing to read in some of the online reviews that he doesn't give credit to Ilya Prigogine, who seems to have foreshadowed many of his ideas and of whom I'm a bit of a fan. Not quite sure, though, that this is exactly what I'm thinking of - I don't think the transition from liquid to gas, say, or from canter to gallop are technically examples of chaotic behaviour, I think they're something else...
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