From: Jeff Bone (jbone@jump.net)
Date: Tue Feb 01 2000 - 09:10:13 PST
Okay, perhaps I should neg cred for taking this as my operative definition, given
the source. Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle:
"An entelechy is something complex that emerges when you put a large
number of simple objects together."
Don't read the book, btw, it starts out / positions itself as a "scientific"
exploration into (essentially) the old Problem of Evil, but turns into a rather
irritating, bigoted diatribe against Islam about halfway through(!) (How he
managed the transition, and why the editors bought it is beyond me.)
jb
Jeff Bone wrote:
> Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>
> > The exceptions are that (a) big programs always had some degree of
> > encapsulation, at least since the 1960s; otherwise they wouldn't have
> > been possible; (b) I don't know what entelechy is, and the dictionary
> > definition ("something that actually exists, as opposed to something
> > that merely could exist")
>
> Hmm. The operative definition in the stuff I've been reading seems to be
> something like "behaviors that emerge at higher levels of complexity and
> organization." I.e., stuff that comes from the whole being somehow greater
> than the sum of its parts. Though granted this usage doesn't flow very
> naturally from the dictionary defs I can find, either.
>
> jb
>
> > is not helpful in understanding how it could
> > be an organizing principle in nature, so I can't agree or disagree with
> > that. As if you cared. I just didn't want to claim to agree with
> > something I didn't understand. :)
> >
> > > PS - those damned peasants can still stay the hell off my fallow
> > > pasture. ;-)
> >
> > :)
> >
> > --
> > <kragen@pobox.com> Kragen Sitaker <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
> > The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08. Hurrah!
> > <URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
> > The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either. :)
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