[geeks] I really don't get it ...

[Mike Hebel]

David Cantrell wrote:
> Not necessarily.  Complex systems can have several steady states.

True.

> Here, have an analogy: take a curved surface shaped approximately like a
> parabola but with a hump in the middle.  Place a ball somewhere on that
> surface.  We know that it will end up in one of the two dips, but without
> doing some sums (which have two variables - the shape of the surface and
> the co-efficient of friction) we don't know where.  Now extrapolate to
> the global climate, which is a problem in an unknown number of variables
> interacting in ways which are at best poorly understood.  It seems that we
> are currently at the bottom of one of the dips, in a steady state.  But
> we don't know the exact shape of the surface we're on, and we don't know what
> will happen to the ball when we put some energy into the system.  We might
> give it enough energy to kick it over the hump.  Or, ghod forbid, the
> surface might be an S shape with some wiggles in the middle - so will have
> one or more steady states, plus one that shoots off to infinity.
> 

I get the concept even though I started to zone out the minute you 
mentioned math.  (My biggest failed subject.)

And, I agree. That's why I think that the current "prediction" of global 
warming is off.  There's no way they know using the current information 
that they can make a call of that magnitude with any clear judgement or 
an accurancy IMHO of more than random chance.  Now I'm not saying that 
something shouldn't be done and that some action is not needed but most 
of the time I've had it presented to me as a complete and whole 
explaination.  As far as I'm concerned it's not even close to complete.

Still, I guess that's as far as we could get with current data.

Mike Hebel

Mike Hebel