I’ve been thinking a lot about differences between people for… arguably most of my life, but especially the past few years. One thing I find interesting is that parts of your abstraction/chaos relationship don’t seem to transfer as neatly to people. More specifically, what I have in mind is to elements:
People carry genes around, and these genes can have almost arbitrary effects that aren’t wiped away by noise over time because the genes persist and are copied digitally in their bodies.
It seems to me that agency “wants” to resist chaos? Like if some sort of simple mechanical mechanism creates something, then the something easily gets moved away by external forces, but if a human creates something and wants to keep it, then they can place it in their home and lock their door and/or live in a society that respects private property. (This point doesn’t just apply to environmental stuff like property, but also to biological stuff.)
Individual differences often seem more “amorphous” and vague than you get elsewhere, and I bet elements like the above play a big role in this. The abstraction/chaos post helps throw this into sharp light.
I’m not sure if that’s what you mean that genes and agency are both perfectly valid abstractions IMO. An abstraction can summarize the state of a small part of the system (e.g. genes), not necessarily the entire system (e.g. temperature).
I’ve been thinking a lot about differences between people for… arguably most of my life, but especially the past few years. One thing I find interesting is that parts of your abstraction/chaos relationship don’t seem to transfer as neatly to people. More specifically, what I have in mind is to elements:
People carry genes around, and these genes can have almost arbitrary effects that aren’t wiped away by noise over time because the genes persist and are copied digitally in their bodies.
It seems to me that agency “wants” to resist chaos? Like if some sort of simple mechanical mechanism creates something, then the something easily gets moved away by external forces, but if a human creates something and wants to keep it, then they can place it in their home and lock their door and/or live in a society that respects private property. (This point doesn’t just apply to environmental stuff like property, but also to biological stuff.)
Individual differences often seem more “amorphous” and vague than you get elsewhere, and I bet elements like the above play a big role in this. The abstraction/chaos post helps throw this into sharp light.
I’m not sure if that’s what you mean that genes and agency are both perfectly valid abstractions IMO. An abstraction can summarize the state of a small part of the system (e.g. genes), not necessarily the entire system (e.g. temperature).