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Re: Re FLOW of energy



A different wrinkle:

I consider myself a "reductionist", but there are instances when a
reductionist description is useless and a description on a more abstract
(even metaphorical) level is more approriate and useful for the task at
hand. In the relatively new field of computer implementation the
statement, "The program 'Main' passes the variable 'x' to the subroutine
'Square Root' ", conveys information which would be hopelessly buried in
the reductionist description of the electron/hole currents occuring
within the computer, which alone constitute the physical and substantial
reality concerned with the phenomenon under discussion. It is precisely
the anthropomorphic, metaphoric quality of the above statement which
makes it useful and meaningful (and noone is tempted to visualize a
creature "Main" tending to a bodily function or throwing a forward pass,
etc).

An alternative would have been to invent a whole new technical language
to utter the above quotation so that no other meaning could possibly be
inferred. We have wisely decided that this would be more confusing,
needlessly burdensome, and less useful than using readily understood
metaphors which are already at hand.
--
Bob Sciamanda sciamanda@edinboro.edu
Dept of Physics sciamanda@worldnet.att.net
Edinboro Univ of PA http://www.edinboro.edu/~sciamanda/home.html
Edinboro, PA (814)838-7185