John,
You're right, of course. There is value in all points of view. You've ably explained what drives your own. What drives mine is what I often quote from Jacob Bronowski, "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses."
You say, " ... bottom up/detail oriented and top down/generalized big picture, are a natural dichotomy." That's a nice observation which summarizes why I think so highly of George Ellis's essay two competitions ago (second place winner). His elegant resolution of the dichotomy is an important contribution to complex system science, because it generalizes quite neatly to the cosmological limit. That's the ultimate goal of every scientific theory.
"There is no overall viewpoint, other than sitting way off in the distance, like a historian." And that should tell you why your trying to generalize discrete eye color to a blurry sameness is not viable. If you understand that, you'll also understand why your time-temperature model, built on the same principle, also doesn't work.
You write, "Even mathematicians make assumptions,
'In the outcome of discrete events.'
So just where is that discrete point between the chicken and the fox?"
It depends. On what scale of observation at what discrete moment?
And here is where you really put your finger on the difference in how we think:
"The fact is that you are mortal and the only way to see outside the bubble of your mortality is to let a little of what's outside seep in, because eventually everything inside will seep out."
I'm not concerned with mortality as other than another point on the continuum.
All best,
Tom
