From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 23 10:41:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA24525 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 10:41:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA24520 for ; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 10:41:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id LAA06501; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 11:34:54 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199702231834.LAA06501@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking To: robmel@innotts.co.uk (Robin Melville) Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 11:34:54 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, jkh@time.cdrom.com, ben@narcissus.ml.org, nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Robin Melville" at Feb 23, 97 01:23:52 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain > >fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of > >other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the > >same way I can predict a rock will fall... [etc.] > > This is a man who has never heard of chaos theory... FreeBSD obviously > works solely upon the basis of strange attractors :) Chaos theory allows us to predict spontaneous organization. That's the purpose of chaos theory. Strange attractors are identified using statistical methods, in many instances. Because something is based on chaos does not make it unpredictable; you nearly go so far as to admit that yourself. Consider, now, any set of strange attractors as, itself, a chaotic system. Now identify the second order strange attractors motivating the first order strange attractors chaotic relationship. This is what I have identified, in the past, as "an order of fractal complexity" in a social system. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.