two systems in thermal contact trade energy to maximize the net entropy of the ensemble.

Actually the assumption is that two systems in thermal contact come to some equilibrium state.

Let this equilibrium state _maximize something_, call it S, and use calculus.

Energy is conserved.

Therefore the energy change in on system equals minus the energy change in the other, and the change in S wrt the energy change in each system has to be equal in both systems at the maximum of total S.

Call that change wrt energy the (inverse) temperature. Two systems in thermal contact come to the same temperature, is then what the assumption of some equilibrium of something comes to, after you rename the derivatives.

Only the assumption of an equilibrium has been introduced to get this.

That's where

I favor taking energy from earth rotation. Put a horizontal gyroscope across a circular track around the North Pole, and let the earth rotate under it. Take energy from the relative motion.

We have a thousand words for sorrow http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/sorrow.txt

I don't know if that affects the theory.

(computer clustering a short distance down paths of a thesaurus)

It's called entropy because somebody told Shannon that the same mathematical quantity already existed in thermodynamics, when the question what to call it came up.

I don't know that there's any other operational connection.

Like there's no entropy gradient giving the arrow of time, or system-wide increase.

Consider Cavell on baseball

People can agree about all the facts but argue about what the word means, which question is an empirical one. People don't know what their criteria are for something being a sound, and can only offer aspects that seem to count for it or against it. You have to try the argument and see if you can see it that way.

Perhaps in the end you can bring out what a sound is.

See Cavell on chairs, op cit. and derivatively Wittgenstein.

The people arguing are not making a mistake; the cognitive scientist is.

It's easy to teach a dog what words mean, provided the dog has some interest you can quickly show in the thing meant.

I wrote out on a napkin, one day when she was two, all the words and phrases that my Doberman Susie definitely knew in context, and came up with 200.

All of them were for things that involved her somehow. The most direct naming of things was for toys ; but commands and so forth, and the ever-versitile ``fetch the ...'' where ... is something fetchable, provided a link to lots of items you could name. Her interest was then in fetching, and indirectly to the name of the thing.

People are no different. To teach what red is, you need some interest in red.

I remember a cold call from a stockbroker years ago, wherein he argued that if I didn't believe that the market was going to go down, then I must believe that the market is going to go up.

Leaving aside the stay-the-same option, that isn't A or not A.

``Believe'' has its own grammar.

Wittgenstein : 575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing.

Check out Stanley Cavell's _The Claim of Reason_ if you like Wittgenstein ; lots on intelligent and empathetic robots too, in looking at what forms skepticism takes in people.

It's likely to affect your understanding of what Wittgenstein was up to, as well.

95% confidence means that if you repeat the experiment you get the right answer 95% of the time.

That depends on your thoughts because what counts as a success comes up in the repeats.

The experiment itself does not tell you what would have counted as a success. It simply is. No confidence concept applies.