Part of an ongoing conversation. A reader named Gian asks:
I meant to ask whether the motion of animals is completely describable by quantitative methods.
Dawkins said that animals are gene machines and I think Descartes had a not too dissimilar view.
I do think that the question of animals need to be clarified first before tacking the more difficult problem of man.
Mike Flynn, who is unforgivably and perhaps irrevocably Irish, and therefore not to be trusted nor underestimated, quips:
Surely, you would not put Descartes before the horse!
My answer is longer and less adroit:
I am not sure I understand the question.
Are you asking whether, if I throw a stick to a dog, whether or not a physicist, using the mental tools and deliberately limited abstractions of physics, INCLUDING the abstraction of deliberately ignoring questions of the intent and purpose of the motion, could predict the motion of the dog, without knowing whether or not the dog had been trained to fetch the stick, or saw the stick, or was in the mood to play, or was ill or blind?
I am a little taken aback that you ask the question. You seem to be asking whether a physicist who deliberately ignores the vital information needed to predict what the dog will do can predict what the dog will do? (The information the rules of physics requires the physicist to ignore include, namely, information concerning the dog’s intention, mood, perception, attitude, spirit.)
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