616
The eco-apology, in mathematical terms, borrows from the history of utilitarianism: the worst impact on the most numbers, consolidated into a city. On a planetary
scale, where tiers of triage exert considerable ethical meaning, there is some solace
in the scaling of damage according to the least numbers of such metropolitan clusters, and largest numbers of demographically inflictive inhabitants, lending logic to
the rural–urban migrations around the world.
Add to these coordinated belief systems the notion of biological realism,
21
laws
of large numbers,
22
simple and complex probabilities,
23
“causal independence and
the Sufficient Condition.”
24
Within the overall flow of information between subjects, objects, positions and outcomes, there are maps of probability. We have discussed some of them in earlier chapters, but they conclusively all stem from the
same vortex of a neutral language. That would include both the subjective and
objective—a set of elemental descriptors that encompass every known function
and spin of those infinite intersections between the natural sciences and fundamental physics and calculus. Hence, that would invoke such areas of physics and
chemistry as the Maxwell–Boltzmann distributions (speeds of any gas at any temperature); quasi- determinism, simple behavior, random numbers and discrete
space, as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (in an isolated system maximum entropy is eventually a constant); the Carnot heat engine (the ideal thermodynamic cycle that produces heat); stochastic averages (random markers), Markov
chains (sequentially predicted probability shifts within systems); and electricity.
Even with these physical, high probability distribution events and systems, there
remains the question, again: biological realism?
To further grasp an image in one’s mind of the testament to the proliferation of
biodiversity that human thought has subsumed, several of the great libraries in the
world at once provide a geography of such inconceivably beautiful and restless
idealism in the guise of consciousness: The Morgan Library in Manhattan, the
remarkable Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Trinity College
Library in Dublin, the Biblioteca Angelica Roma, Národní knihovna Praha, or the
Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar II. In the United States, the Library of
Congress hosts a harrowing “800 miles of bookshelves,” “150 million items,” and
“66 million manuscripts.”
25
What does that say about the thermodynamic cycles of
humanity? Of entropy in consciousness? Or of biological realism framed within the
evolutionary cycles that we glimpse only in their varietal transitional phases?
To take one example of what we mean by transitional. The prelapsarian gut (a
metaphor suggesting the perfect, unspoiled, unevolved human anatomy; that
moment it was born, without having tasted the death of another) teeming with its
bacterial soldiers of life, does not translate into today’s vertebrate cognition, not
21 ibid., p. 330.
22 ibid., p. 9.
23 ibid., pp. 28–29.
24 ibid., p. 147.
25 https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/where-is-the-largest-library-in-the-world,
Accessed
September 17, 2019.
65 The Great Divergence
The eco-apology, in mathematical terms, borrows from the history of utilitarianism: the worst impact on the most numbers, consolidated into a city. On a planetary
scale, where tiers of triage exert considerable ethical meaning, there is some solace
in the scaling of damage according to the least numbers of such metropolitan clusters, and largest numbers of demographically inflictive inhabitants, lending logic to
the rural–urban migrations around the world.
Add to these coordinated belief systems the notion of biological realism,
21
laws
of large numbers,
22
simple and complex probabilities,
23
“causal independence and
the Sufficient Condition.”
24
Within the overall flow of information between subjects, objects, positions and outcomes, there are maps of probability. We have discussed some of them in earlier chapters, but they conclusively all stem from the
same vortex of a neutral language. That would include both the subjective and
objective—a set of elemental descriptors that encompass every known function
and spin of those infinite intersections between the natural sciences and fundamental physics and calculus. Hence, that would invoke such areas of physics and
chemistry as the Maxwell–Boltzmann distributions (speeds of any gas at any temperature); quasi- determinism, simple behavior, random numbers and discrete
space, as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (in an isolated system maximum entropy is eventually a constant); the Carnot heat engine (the ideal thermodynamic cycle that produces heat); stochastic averages (random markers), Markov
chains (sequentially predicted probability shifts within systems); and electricity.
Even with these physical, high probability distribution events and systems, there
remains the question, again: biological realism?
To further grasp an image in one’s mind of the testament to the proliferation of
biodiversity that human thought has subsumed, several of the great libraries in the
world at once provide a geography of such inconceivably beautiful and restless
idealism in the guise of consciousness: The Morgan Library in Manhattan, the
remarkable Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Trinity College
Library in Dublin, the Biblioteca Angelica Roma, Národní knihovna Praha, or the
Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar II. In the United States, the Library of
Congress hosts a harrowing “800 miles of bookshelves,” “150 million items,” and
“66 million manuscripts.”
25
What does that say about the thermodynamic cycles of
humanity? Of entropy in consciousness? Or of biological realism framed within the
evolutionary cycles that we glimpse only in their varietal transitional phases?
To take one example of what we mean by transitional. The prelapsarian gut (a
metaphor suggesting the perfect, unspoiled, unevolved human anatomy; that
moment it was born, without having tasted the death of another) teeming with its
bacterial soldiers of life, does not translate into today’s vertebrate cognition, not
21 ibid., p. 330.
22 ibid., p. 9.
23 ibid., pp. 28–29.
24 ibid., p. 147.
25 https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/where-is-the-largest-library-in-the-world,
Accessed
September 17, 2019.
65 The Great Divergence