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Archives

1 2

Archiving the Dispute

Now that some new parties have expressed an interest and are contributing, I think the time has arrived to archive the dispute that began over tagging for citations and led to the article being protected (frozen) December 3. I have archived it and then copied three specific remarks on subject matter (edited for concision) to a section following, to refresh their currency to help guide the development of the article content, since they seemed especially noteworthy and cogent. If this is premature, we can work the material back in (not a revert, please, as I am adding some original remarks of my own below), but I'm confident the timing is right. Hu 17:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, but in the process I inadvertently clobbered an edit by Fourdee. I have placed it in the Archive 2 since it seems to be appropriate there. — Hu 18:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Some Prior Remarks on Subject Matter

Hofstadter and Gell-Mann

Hofstadter supports only "weak emergence" in explaining consciousness, from GEB:

"This should not be taken as an antireductionist position. It just implies that a reductionist explanation of a mind, in order to be comprehensible, must bring in "soft" concepts such as levels, mappings, and meanings. In particular, I have no doubt that a totally reductionist but incomprehensible explanation of the brain exists; the problem is how to translate it into a language we ourselves can fathom."

Gell-Mann on the subject of consciousness rejects the mystical, new-cause and pseudo-Heisenberg-based explanations - from the summary of "Consciousness, Reduction, and Emergence":

"Consciousness is often seen as requiring a special kind of explanation. But the various aspects of self-awareness can presumably emerge when certain levels of complexity are reached in an organism: it is not necessary to assume additional mechanisms or hidden causes. Looking at the most fundamental level, that of elementary particle physics, three principles appear—the conformability of nature to herself, the applicability of the criterion of simplicity, and the utility of certain parts of mathematics in describing physical reality—which are in themselves emergent properties of the fundamental laws of physics. All the other sciences emerge in principle from fundamental physics plus historical accidents, even though "reduction" is obviously inadequate as a strategy. Finally, it is argued that appeals to the alleged weirdness of quantum mechanics are based on a misunderstanding and are unlikely to have any place in a discussion of consciousness."

(Quoted by Fourdee 21:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC))

Intro and General Thoughts

First, I have a suggestion on an approach that I think is more likely to resolve the dispute. Why not focus, at least in the introduction, on describing how the concept of emergence has developed and been applied in a number of different disciplines, instead of trying to definitively say what *emergence* *is*.

Second, some more general thoughts: While I agree with many of his points, I believe that Fourdee has conflated the imposition of a model on a system with the determination of the causal relationships amongst the whole and its components. Clearly, it is incorrect to say that the complete dynamics of a (deterministic) system are not implied by the dynamics of its individual interactions. However, by embracing the broadest possible definition of emergence, and failing to explain the process by which the concept has been extended, the current article makes it seem like this is the claim.

No one makes the argument that the mathematical operators that compose a nonlinear dynamical system such as, say, the Logistic map do not "explain" or "predict" the function's resultant behavior. The only reason for this I can think of is that in the context it's abundantly clear that the behavior under consideration is the result of systemic properties: the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Also, it's interesting to note that the article on Complex Systems doesn't even mention emergence. It does, however, link to Synergetics, which deals with emergence in the more limited sense of self-organization. It would seem to me that this is the narrowest, most mathematical definition of emergence, and an important historical motivator for the concept. This article should definitely have more than a couple of sentences to say on the role of entropy in the matter (pun intended!).

Finally, here is a quote from a paper called "Perpetuating Evolutionary Emergence" by Alastair Channon, which I think is a nice introduction to the way that the same core concept has been approached from a number of different perspectives:

Cariani identified the three current tracts of thought on emergence, calling them “computational”, “thermodynamic” and “relative to a model”. Computational emergence is related to the manifestation of new global forms, such as flocking behavior and chaos, from local interactions. Thermodynamic emergence is concerned with issues such as the origins of life, where order emerges from noise. The emergence relative to a model concept deals with situations where observers need to change their model in order to keep up with a system’s behavior. This is close to Steels’ concept of emergence, which refers to ongoing processes which produce results invoking vocabulary not previously involved in the description of the system’s inner components – "new descriptive categories".

The paper is available online if anyone would like to look up the references to Cariani and Steels.

Kyle Cronan 11:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Paper on weak vs. strong emergence

Here's a paper that would seem to be relevant to our discussion:

There's a lot of philosophical language that just makes no sense to me, but this section in particular seems helpful:

Since emergent phenomena supervene on underlying processes, in this sense the underlying processes constitute and generate the emergent phenomena. And emergent phenomena are autonomous from the underlying processes since they exert an irreducible form of downward causal influence. Nevertheless, strong emergence has a number of failings, all of which can be traced to strong downward causation.

Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing.

It would seem that this distinction between "strong emergence" and "weak emergence" is primarily of concern to Philosophy. The author's characterization of weak emergence, later in the paper, captures the more CS/physics oriented view of emergence as new "global forms" arising out of local behavior, as well as the more evolutionary view of emergence as requiring increasingly sophisticated models of the system's dynamics (ie, open-ended evolution--see Universal Constructor).

I believe what we must certainly avoid is giving the impression that these views of emergence, inasmuch as they represent current scientific theory, somehow support strong emergence, a philosophical position about irreducibility. Kyle Cronan 07:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC

Some of what I'm replying to has been archived, so I'm going to summarize a bit.

Fourdee, you want to know how systems methodology is not like the scientific method. To put it in one word, "laboratory". Science presumes that things can be taken apart, isolated independently, then the way they work without countless other things acting on them (that is, the way they work in a controlled and artificial environment) is the way the work in the real world. While that can be useful, its a statement of faith. Systems methodology doesn't make that assumption. It realizes that the countless other things are possibly acting on what is being studied in ways that are unknown and, therefore, to isolate what is being studied in order to see what it does is very likely to study it when it isn't behaving the same as it does in the real world environment. Kyle, why are you presuming that philosophy and science are two seperate things, especially given that I have already pointed out that science cannot be seperated from its philosophical underpinnings? Is it because I didn't explain that clearly enough or is it that you didn't read what I wrote?-Psychohistorian 01:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that the "laboratory" is part of the scientific method. My recollection is that you have repeatedly insisted systems theory doesn't use the scientific method, which is generally held to be constituted of the following:

Characterizations (Quantifications, observations, and measurements)

Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements)

Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction from hypothesis and theory)

Experiments (tests of all of the above)

If systems thinking doesn't involve the above, precisely how are its ideas formulated and tested? Isn't the scientific method just a description of how theories arise? After all, isn't this field usually called "systems science"? Fourdee 02:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so you are using the term as it is used by the uninformed masses and as it is taught in freshman level science classes. I was going a bit deeper than that. After all, astrology would be a science based on your description above, so would alchemy.-Psychohistorian 13:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That is the "scientific method". I believe that's the term you have been using, have you not? If you are aware of some other meaning for "the scientific method" feel free to provide it. Science is commonly used to describe "the social sciences" and "systems science" - just what is the department of a university where systems theory is taught usually called? I've always heard it called the Department of Systems Science or something to that effect. Apparently all these other people are ignorant of what science means too. Astrology and alchemy would definitely be science if experiments validated their claims and predictions - big difference. Fourdee 21:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Interesting little conundrum you've presented me, Fourdee. I can either side with you, an anonymous editor on Misplaced Pages who seems to know very little about science (given that you are belittling the role of philosophy in science, have had to have it pointed out to you that you were using the term 'accuracy' when you meant 'precision', etc.), or I can side with Eberhardt Rechtin - a distinguished and highly respected researcher in the field (who received the Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the Alexander Graham Bell Award, the Pioneer Award, and many others). I think I'll side with Rechtin as I've been doing.-Psychohistorian 14:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Eberhardt Rechtin was an engineer, not a scientist, and is hardly the sort of expert one would cite for defining what the "scientific method" is. The scientific method is defined as I gave it above. Fourdee 20:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

A Medium Revamp

I have made a number of edits based on the start made by Kyle to Talk:Emergence/NewVersion, comprising of the following changes (which are in the context of some suggestions for next steps, below):

• Retained Kyle's work on the introduction mostly as is, for the time being.
• Systematized the References and Bibliography according the Misplaced Pages implementation of Harvard referencing (reasoning and discussion below).
• Moved a paragraph about the three orders of emergent structures up into sub-intro of the "Emergent structures in nature" because I thought it was sufficiently high level to belong there, and also I think it is a fascinating analysis.
• Trimmed the "Non-Living Physical Systems" sub-section because it was long and verbose, particularly on Temperature. I removed a sentence or phrase here and there.
• Moved a paragraph from the "Biological systems" sub-section up into the "Physical sub-section and reversed the order of the sentences so that they go in order of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, which is a nice progression and seque to the next section.
• Moved a couple of the "Biological systems" paragraphs around for more orderly presentation.
• Highlighted the terms "weak" and "strong", which is not strictly Misplaced Pages style, but I think they are important enough.
• Split out the stock market example into an Economics sub-section.
• Added a statement about pathways in landscape architecture. I spent over an hour looking for an online reference without success. They exist and I am depending on our architecture expert to provide one!
• Restored the three-column organization of the See Also section so that it takes less vertical space.

Hu 17:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Citations and References

After a couple of years of experience here (during which references were revamped right across the encyclopedia) and some recent experimentation, I have concluded that I heartily recommend the Misplaced Pages implementation of the Harvard citation schema, particularly for scholarly articles, for the following reasons (no other Misplaced Pages scheme offers all of these advantages):

• As it appears in the text to a reader, it provides a meaningful reference (Name, year), especially for one familiar with the literature of the field, more meaningful than a footnote number, and not bulky.
• The reference links in the text edit phase are simple, compact, and easy to use and reuse. They are of the form {{Harv|Name|year}} (Template talk:Harvard citation).
• The Bibliography entries (Template talk:Harvard reference) can (with no alteration) double as citations for the text. Thus the Reference and Bibliography can be seamlessly melded.
• The Misplaced Pages footnoting system (<ref></ref>) can be used for footnotes without interference with the Harv citations. However, the footnote system is not the best for citations because it puts the reference entry into the text and it can be a bother finding duplicate entries and keeping the naming scheme consistent.
• The References can be alphabetically sorted, not possible with the footnoting system.
• The {{cite}} schema leads to even bulkier disruption of the text in the edit phase.

In the reference/bibliography section, sort on primary order alphabetical on surname, secondary on year. Use unspaced Harvard Citations in the text for compactness, and fully spaced (for readability and clarity during editing) Harvard References in the Reference/Bibliography section.

Hu 17:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Next Steps

For the next steps onward I have the following suggestions:

• More citations to the references (of course).
• Delay any further work on the introduction until the body of the article is in good shape. Then doing the introduction becomes an easier task of distillation and summary.
• Sections on Strong Emergence, Weak Emergence, and Criticisms of the emergence paradigm. There could potentially be separate articles on Strong and Weak, if the sections get large enough. There could even potentially be some discussion of mysticism, not as the primary focus (since I agree with others that this is strongly and primarily a scientific/technical topic), but as a counterpoint.
• No excision or neglect of discussion of emergence as it relates to Intelligence, Consciousness, Societies, Governance, Economics, Architecture, Software, Memes and other fields.
• Remember that you can put very radical changes into this "New Version" sandbox without prior discussion, but if they really are radical, it might be best to put them in and then immediately revert one's self. This gets them into the record for diffing and comparing and discussion without interrupting the regular flow of edits. I trust that the medium revamp I have just made will not be seen as severe or radical, but will be seen as evolutionary.

Hu 17:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

Thanks for your work Hu. However, I find this new introduction completely objectionable, still uncited, and completely counter to the balanced view which is the only resolution to our dispute.

"Emergence is the appearance of systemic behavior that can not be explained as the mere aggregate effect of the system's constituent interactions, or be analyzed at the level of the constituent parts. The concept is related to the old observation that, often, "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" (synergy). The term is also generally employed in scientific contexts to describe the inability to readily explain macroscale phenomena in terms of understood microscale dynamics."

"Cannot be explained", "the whole is more than the sum of its parts", and "inability". Those are not facts. It seems to be you ignored all of my objections and came back with an even stronger phrasing of your view. I also think the introduction is the first part we need to address, so that a consistent definition for or explanation of emergence can be used throughout the article, as well defining the tone to be used. Were I to edit this new version at the moment I would delete a lot of it. Fourdee 18:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we leave the introduction as-is for the time-being, since by working the article into good shape, all issues will get straightened out, and a good introduction will emerge at that time. Hu 18:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe you left the introduction as it was, this is an entirely new one. The article builds on the introduction. If we don't get the phrasing right up front, the whole thing will have to be redone. I would prefer something like:

Emergence is a term used in Philosophy, Systems Theory and the Sciences to describe the appearance of complex organized systems. It is generally divided into two perspectives, that of "weak emergence" and "strong emergence". Weak emergence describes new properties arising in systems as a result of the interactions at an elemental level. Strong emergence, which is a view not widely held in the sciences but proposed as a philosophical theory of etiology, epistemology and ontology, describes complex systems as not being explained by their constituent interactions, in other words that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

-- Fourdee 18:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In other words, if you are building on the "cannot be explained", "inability to explain" and "more than the sum of parts" points of view and using them as facts, your edits will be to no end and will have be reverted, as these are not accepted facts, even if cited. Assuming good citations, these concepts will still need to be phrased as opinion because they are hotly contested. Fourdee 18:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

No, as I explained above, I left the introduction basically the way Kyle had changed it (it was Kyle who made "an entirely new one"), and no, please don't put words in my mouth (again) (I am not building on what you suppose) and please don't threaten "your edits will be to no end". Please be more cooperative. Please recognize that I had just done a substantial amount of work on the new version and a substantial amount of explanation free of rancor in the spirit of cooperation (8 minutes before you attacked me (again) with "It does not seem that Hu or Psychohistorian are willing to accept the offer of collaborating on a new version before unprotection". It was essentially a simultaneous edit, but the edits do show that a) At least Kyle and I are collaborating cooperatively, and b) 14 minutes further on you continue to bicker. If you must bicker, please at least get your facts straight, but I do suggest that we others are cooperating and you are increasingly becoming the odd man out of that realm. Now, let's hope that this last little bit was an accident and, now that work on the new version has begun in earnest, that cooperation will prevail. Hu 18:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You still don't know what a personal attack is. A personal attack would be saying something about your person, character, qualifications, abilities, etc., not what you do or think (even incorrectly attributed, which would be a mistake). By your own definition of ad hominem, you are guilty of it in the very paragraph where you complain about it. Fourdee 19:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In the spirit of my remarks of 18:50 UTC just above, I will not respond at this time beyond this sentence. Hu 19:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Good, please do live by your own rules and requests. Anyway, let's further look at what I said, since you continued to "bicker" while requesting that the bickering stop:

"I do not believe you left the introduction as it was, this is an entirely new one."

This is correct, you did not leave the introduction as it was (even after Kyle's changes) and it is an entirely new one. This is phrased as "i do not believe". I do not say that you are solely responsible for the current version, I make no claims of fact other than I didn't believe you left the introduction as it was (which is true, you did not) and that it is a new version. You are saying "let's leave this alone" right after you edited it yourself.

"In other words, if you are building on the..."

Note the "if". Subtle I guess, but significant.

"It does not seem that Hu or Psychohistorian are willing to accept the offer of collaborating on a new version before unprotection."

It was a simultaneous edit and correctly reflects the fact that you ignored the offer for almost 4 days. Also note again my phrasing - "it does not seem".

It's also curious that I offered what I thought the introduction should read and immediately afterward you accuse me of not cooperating. Bickerbickerbicker... and please stop bickering. Editeditedit... and please don't edit. Attackattackattack... and please don't attack. First time I've had the chance to use it on Misplaced Pages, but - LOL. Fourdee 19:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, In the spirit of my remarks of 18:50 UTC just above, I will not respond at this time beyond this sentence. Hu 19:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In the spirit of not not responding, this is all the response I will make. I reserve the right to further expound on not not responding at a future date, and to not not respond further. Fourdee 20:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Hu 20:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for being negative and making assumptions, Hu. Thanks for working on the collaboration. Fourdee 21:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If you don't mind, we could just delete this section except for my proposed introduction, this bickering is indeed not productive. Fourdee 21:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Emergence is also a concept within the social sciences

With the article recently added to WikiProject Physics (which I support), and the article under heavy dispute at present, I think it is worth keeping in the very front of our minds that emergence and emergent behavior are concepts that are developed in many disciplines across the academic community.

For example, in the social sciences alone, there is a long and complex history. Writings on emergent outcomes of human social behavior go back at least to the 6th century BC, in both ancient Chinese and ancient Greek thought. In the second millenium, there was a thread of such thought, primarily but not exclusively in economics, from late medieval through the mid-nineteenth centuries, followed by an explosion of such thought, across the social sciences, after about 1860 with PJ Proudhon, Carl Menger, Emile Durkheim, Michael Polanyi, Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Kuhn. In the late twentieth century there was substantial work in a variety of fields including group cooperation, social justice, coordination theory, 'governance' (Political Science), the progress of 'science' within academic communities, and of course many areas within economics. A quick search of any of the social science research databases will produce a slew of articles and books.

I do not have time to get heavily involved in writing this article (at least, not for a few weeks), and would choose to stay out of the current contentious debate in any case, but I do think it is worthwhile to keep this perspective in mind when a number of you are proposing to substantially reshape the article right now. I hope this was a constructive thought and helpful to your work in improving the article. I believe it is important that the article remain consciously and explicitly cross-disciplinary, from the physical or hard sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Computer Science, etc.) to the natural sciences (Neuro-biology, Geology, Meteorology, Hydrology), to the social sciences (Sociology, Political Science, Economics, etc.). (N2e 21:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. You raise interesting points to explore. Hu 21:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I had mentioned before that emergence is not the exclusive domain of the hard science, but think I was ignored. Hopefully, another person saying the same thing will catch some people's attention.-Psychohistorian 01:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No one is saying philosophy and systems thinking should not be included the article. In fact it wouldn't be much of an article without mentioning those views. Fourdee 02:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And, once more, you are making the mistake of thinking that we'd need to -add- philosophy if we restricted ourselves to science.-Psychohistorian 13:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Psychohistorian's right on this one, Fourdee (Science is a branch of Philosophy). However I agree with your sentiment that non-scientific views should not intermingle heavily with the scientific views (at least not to the point where it is confusing to the average reader). - JustinWick 18:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Scientific statements are not a kind of philosophy in the usual sense. Philosophy has proclaimed the theory of science (i.e. the scientific method) under its purview, scientists have not proclaimed themselves philosophers. You are not using the term "philosophy" in the most common way, so it's hardly reasonable for you to claim that your different use of the term than mine invalidates what I am saying. This seems like an intentional semantic quibble when you know quite well what I mean. Here is how I am using the term philosophy from m-w.com:

"1 a (1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts"

"2 a : pursuit of wisdom b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs"

It is not useful to introduce a semantic niggle with someone who is using a term, in conversation, in its customary sense. Fourdee 21:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Science was called "Natural philosophy" for many years. As a practical matter, it doesn't matter whether scientists are philosophers or not. What does matter is that philosophers have had some useful and interesting things to say about Emergence, and thus are included in the article. Hu 22:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

If you would read the article you linked yourself, you would find that "natural philosophy" did not employ the scientific method (specifically validation through experiment) and was therefore not science. Fourdee 22:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

""natural philosophy" did not employ the scientific method (specifically validation through experiment) and was therefore not science". More to the point, it is experiment in a controlled environment - a laboratory. Seems I mentioned the role of the laboratory in an earlier message of mine.-Psychohistorian 19:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You may "mention" the laboratory as often as you like, however that will not make it any more intrinsically part of the scientific method, which it is not. There are sciences which cannot readily use a laboratory - astronomy and the social sciences come to mind, no doubt there are many more; I'm curious how geology can conduct laboratory validations of plate tectonics or mountain building or the like. Computer simulations are a recent development and don't really constitute an experiment; they are a mere model, a hypothesis and prediction. Fourdee 20:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to make assumptions about my reading or my state of knowledge. Of course "natural philosophy" was only the foundation of science and not "science as we know it now". However, what practical consequence to the editing of the article are you suggesting by focusing on the word "philosophy"? I don't think you've made one. Hu 23:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You said that science was called something which it was not; you made a factual error and an incorrect statement which could've been resolved by reading the link, assuming a standard degree of comprehension. "Natural philosophy" was not science since it did not employ the scientific method. You appear to have meant to say "the study of nature was once called 'natural philsophy' instead of 'science'" which I agree with and is pertinent to Psychohistorian's quibble. Strange that you accuse me of being "focused" on the term "philosophy" when I am not the one who insists on starting (incorrect) semantic arguments about it. Of course I am going to respond to false statements and any challenges against what I have said, I cannot resist - perhaps it is a flaw of mine. Also, please indent your responses properly; it makes things much easier to follow. Further, it behooves a man to admit his mistakes rather than niggle his way out of them. It certainly saves some typing and energy. Fourdee 00:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I made a simple statement that you quibbled over. It behooves a person (and a man too) to not niggle or bicker their way into quibbles. So, the question remains, what practical consequence to the editing of the article are you suggesting by focusing on the word "philosophy"? I don't think you've made one. Hu 00:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You are still (and persistently) not indenting your responses. I hope you don't mind that I do it for you as I find it difficult to read this without indents. There is no practical consequence to the semantics of "philosophy" at all; perhaps you should focus on the source of the niggle, Psychohistorian. I am merely responding to the both of you. The logical chain of events in this is readily clear above. Fourdee 00:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, you are the one who started to focus on philosophy vs. science. I just pointed out how scientifically illiterate that is. In addition to the book I recommended earlier, I also recommend this book.

It really would help this article if the editors working on it were educated on the subject of the article and related fields -Psychohistorian 19:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just used the term philosophy correctly above, and you tried to correct me with an improper usage. Insofar as philosophy is usually considered to be about abstract rather than concrete knowledge, as I quoted from the dictionary above (perhaps the dictionary is wrong too), while the scientific method may be an example of philosophy, scientific statements per se are not. You may use continue the term philosophy to mean all knowledge, but that is a peculiar, even absurd usage. We might as well do away with all these labels for fields of study and call everyone philosophers - I think most will prefer to continue to use philosophy to mean "a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means" or "an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs" or perhaps definition 1a(1) from the dictionary: "all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts" (if you need the definition for "technical", I'd suggest the dictionary). QED. Fourdee 20:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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