Hi Scott, Andre:
ANDRE:
> > Popper said something about where this kind of
> > questioning can lead to. And so am I.
> >
> > Is a Black Swan a Swan?
SCOTT:
> I don't get it. If whiteness is included in the definition of "swan"
> then no, but then maybe one should change one's definition. How does
> this connect to the question whether there are or are not eternal
> non-mathematical (better: non-tautological) static patterns?
I don't get it either. But a more fundamental question that never occured
to Popper is not about whether a black swan is a swan, but whether the
swan in question is a good swan.
As for eternal static patterns, the problem with assuming there are none
is the same as assuming there are no absolutes. Both are self-
contradictory. But that being said, we live with contradictions every day,
like the present never changes but everything that changes changes in
the present. (I wonder how those trying to create artificial intelligence
will handle such paradoxes?) As for tautologies, Pirsig among others
has pointed out a tautology that has never lost its popularity among
Darwinians in spite of its vacuity, namely, "survival of the fittest."
Platt
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