I am harvesting carrots, okra, muscadine, carrots, peppers and the occasional non insect damaged kale, collard and chard. I am hoping for a decent crop of sweet potatoes – here is my first unearthed specimen:
I am also clearing the beds of tomato plants and weeds and layering on compost, and seeding for fall. Gives me time to mull on past conversations. We just returned from a West coast visit where I met an old acquaintance and we began discussing climate change. He said no one can predict the climate and exampled the so called “butterfly effect” as evidence of the existence of chaos. When I challenged the concept of chaos he gave as proof, the double pendulum example. Think of a pendulum swinging back and forth and attach a second pendulum to the first pendulum. As of now no one can predict how the second pendulum will swing. My friend said this proved there is chaos out there such that where things are influenced by chaos we cannot predict the outcome.
And this is where I disagree. Pendulums swinging back and forth are mechanical operations and therefore deterministic, by which I mean if we can identify (know and measure) all the factors which influence the movement of the pendulum (friction, temperature, wind movement, gravitational pulls etc.) and if we have the technology and know how to compute all these factors, then we can predict the movement of the second pendulum. I do not accept that with mechanical operations there is some wreaking force out there which confounds predictions. Similarly one day we should be able to better predict climate change and weather.
The concept of determinism sidled into a different conversation. I have varied discussions with my runner/walker buddies (more of the latter as the years advance) and since I cannot participate in the college football discussions (don’t have the environmental conditioning or background) I become more vocal when they veer to health (interest in health waxes as running wanes). And also in this area I encounter strong views such as that genetics determines most health outcomes (e.g. “my son and I both have GERD, it is genetic” – GERD =gastro esophageal reflux disease). So here in a non-mechanistic environment where we are dealing with immense complexity, variability and unpredictable genetic evolutions, a deterministic approach is adopted. And in the previous example where we describe a mechanistic setup uncomplicated by life forms, a non-deterministic, chaos theory is proposed. What gives?
For the health scenario, probably when things go wrong we accept the event better if we can convince ourselves that we are in no way responsible for the outcome – it was either someone or something else that caused it or the genes we inherited.
My runner/walker buddies exercise weekly and avoid junk foods, and look out for the happy combination of fine dining and healthy eating, with the emphasis on the former. We always breakfast after our run/walk and as they tucked into their ornate egg omelets, and me my oatmeal, I was asked me casually if the “food Nazis” had yet attacked eggs. So even for the well informed, guidance on healthy eating is not welcomed.
PS – I enjoy eggs produced by my free range, untreated chicken, tho I will admit, if pressed, that the grain which supplements their browse, does have GMO content.