Subject: Alternant hydrocarbons and Holism?

From: Henry Pang <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 05:15:17 +0930

Hi CCL

Thank you for many responses on alternant hydrocarbons. I was too scared to
stress my real intent. I merely used alternants to get through CCL filters.
Forgive me but I referred to my children and Lego building blocks to say I
think CC would benefit from a bit of holism instead of a total a narrow
reductionism. CC appears to only focus on the properties and bonds of
children's Lego blocks.

CCL day in and day out is entirely about asking everyone for new and better
methods of playing with Lego blocks. I am an Australian medical doctor
studying Masters computational chemistry. My prime interest in CC is to link
atoms and molecules to the Big Picture of the real world. I worry about the
dependence of CC on approximations applied to everything in vision. I cannot
solve the Schrodinger equation. Can you? Should I feel concerned when the
whole edifice of CC is based only on approximations? I ponder is there an
important reason for this forced position? Does CC really believe that one
day, with more funding, it will reach Absolute Truth (whatever that might
really be) in real terms?

I like to dream with my children about our Universe, about origins of
everything, about our planet earth, inanimate and animate things not least
new human babies when I am in Labour Ward. I appreciate CC is about
'rigorous science' but with respect, I believe CC would be even greater, if
there was space for a wider link to the real world. Do tell me where to find
CC applications in my professional field of health and medical care.

I think it could be wonderful and rewarding in many dimensions, if CCL could
see its way to stimulate interest in 'holism', as a respected component in
CC. 

Dictionary for the word Holism - 
"Holism noun [U] 
The belief that anything natural is in some way connected to everything else
and that each thing, such as a person, is a whole which is more important
than the parts that make it up. 
More and more people are taking holism seriously because they find
materialism unsatisfying."

Cambridge Dictionaries Online
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=holism*1+0

God Bless America

Dr Henry Pang (medical)
Australia

---

From: "Kieran F Lim (Lim Pak Kwan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:32:24 +1000

>CC applications in my professional field of health and medical care.

see, for example, the book by (I think Oxford Press) entitled
      Molecular Orbital Calculations for Biological Systems.
it discusses, inter alia, computational calculations of pharmaceutical
and other biochemical systems.

>important reason for this forced position? Does CC really believe that one

you state you are a medical practitioner. how do you treat your
patients?

- you measure a temperature by thermometer in the mouth, or the
   ear or forehead or some other accessible body part and then APPROXIMATE
   that to be the (core) "body" temperature! this is an approximation.
   yet i have never met a doctor who questions this procedure.

- you measure the body "weight" (mass) of a patient -- usually
   with clothes on and then APPROXIMATE a correction for shoes, clothes, etc,
   or sometimes APPROXIMATE the correction to be zero!

- when you ask your children to buy a kilogram of bananas, i assume
   they usually take a whole number of bananas that is APPROXIMATELY 1 kg.
   they don't take 5.475893... bananas weighing 1 kg, or do they?

the whole of edifice science, engineering, technology, medicine and society
is based on approximations.

you are really asking a philosophical question, and should see
(for example) journals on the philosophy of science -- info about some
of which (eg Foundations of Chemistry) is occasionally posted on CCL.

Also see International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry
http://www.georgetown.edu/earleyj/ISPC.html

also I note your NTU address. talk to your local computational
chemist(s) at NTU (I know him, and know him to be an interesting
person to talk to).

Kieran

------------------------------------------------------------
  Dr Kieran F Lim             Biol. and Chemical Sciences
  (Lim Pak Kwan)              Deakin University
  ph:  + [61] (3) 5227-2146   Geelong          VIC   3217
  fax: + [61] (3) 5227-1040   AUSTRALIA
  mailto:[email-masked]    http://www.deakin.edu.au/~lim