[OFF-TOPIC] (was Re: Debian's problems)
On Mon, Sep 13, 1999 at 11:51:41PM +0200, Juergen A. Erhard wrote:
> > 'Anarchy' is obviously a very bad word for you. But anarchy != chaos.
> > At least not in my world.
On Mon, Sep 13, 1999 at 07:26:54PM -0400, Joe Drew wrote:
> I was thinking more along the lines of heat-death of the universe.
> The natural way of things is to go into anarchy unless otherwise acted
> upon; at least, this is the way I understand it.
Please don't mix cosmological arguments into discussions of how to
organize debian: They don't lead to anywhere of much practical use.
Specifically:
"heat death" is a conceptual tool used by cosmologists in an attempt to
define just what they mean by "the universe". And so far, there isn't
really a rigorous definition of "the universe" -- it changes depending
on context.
Heat death is not a useful concept for talking about the interactions
of a few hundred highly skilled individuals. [If nothing else, they'd
be all be dead long before they reached heat death.]
Also, heat death -- as it's classically formulated -- tends to disregard
the effect of gravity. Gravity is a fairly weak force, and so is largely
ignored in discussions of thermodynamics, but it tends to organize matter
and energy over time.
And, yes, black holes allow for the potential of something very like
heat death, even with the long-term effects of gravity. Then again,
the definition of universe is very similar to the definition of a black
hole... to even talk about order vs. chaos in that context is so far
from talking about how debian developers agree on what they're going to
do it's not even funny.
Anyways...
--
Raul
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