[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

Krim said: Of course culture sets parameters on our experience. But so
does biology. How are these incompatible?

DM: That's OK but I'd want to say more. Brains do not so much set
parameters for the next level up so much as they create a platform
that allows the emergence of new possibilities, in fact only some
of those possibilities do not emerge only a small fraction of them
do (just look at how some of the brains round here get used sometimes).

[Krimel]
True enough but what does emerge depends entirely on the stability of the
static patterns that give rise to it. Those patterns establish a certain
range for what is possible because any new emergent possibilities are
constrained by those static relations that give rise to it.

[DM]
Obviously only certain possibilites could emerge based on brains
but brains do not so much constrain the next level up as unleash it.
Take genes as an example, the variation genes are capable of unfolding
is vast, and the known life on Earth is only a tiny fragment of the possible
combinations genes could actualise. Let alone genes based on different
organic bases. Genes are not so much a constraint as an unleashing.
And brains unleash incredible unpredictable behaviour and experiences.

[Krimel]
But genetic code does constrain the possibilities for variation. It can and
obviously does allow tremendous variation but all most all animals about a
certain size have nervous systems encased in bone. They respond to similar
types of energy in the environment. Mammals are constrained to four limbs,
etc. Creativity and the unleashing of potential occur because of constrain
not in spite of it. The form of the three minute song produces endless
variation on that constrain. As do the structure of sonnets, the narration
of plot, the specific notes of the scale, as Joe would point out.

[DM]
Such is DQ: the actualising of the possible, an infinite resource barely
explored/expressed by our actual universe. Of course as soon as any
parameter is set, such as proton mass, 99.9999% of possible worlds
are made impossible for us, but that still leaves alot of possible worlds
to reduce by another 99.999999% when the next bit of contingency or
SQ is established. Even this email means that this universe will never enjoy
all the possible emails that I have just failed to create, collapsing 
another 99.99999% possible world wave functions. Thins is everytime you 
reduce the infinite by 99.999999% you still have a very large finite
universe.

[Krimel]
As Vonnegut notes in Cat's Cradle, if you are stacking cannon balls the
first layer you stack determines or at least constrains the possible shape
of the final stacking.