Re: My and Rosen's "complexity"
Don Mikulecky (mikulecky@VCUVAX.BITNET)
Wed, 19 Jul 1995 09:45:22 -0400
>Hey it looks as if me and Don are actually agreeing on some things!
>(though I think that fundermentally the difficulty is that he is an
>pesimist :-( and I am an optimist! :-)). I am not going to quote and
>reply on Don's last e-mail as that makes it so unreadable.
>
>I am quite happy using whatever labels for concepts are easy, as
>long as everyone knows what is what, for the purposes of this
>discussion. I am in the lucky position of not having to fight
>political battles over scientific dogma (I do have some difficulties
>with Economic dogma), so I do not worry whether something is
>"pandering" to anyone or not. Thus I am quite happy for some terms
>(e.g. "Complete Complexity" for Rosen's and "degrees of complexity"
>for my conception where they do not correspond (just to pick two
>terrms out of the air - if "Complete Complexity" does not have
>enough status for you, pick another one (other than straight
>"complexity" which we will both avoid for the sake of sense)).
>
Since there are implications here that seem to totally misrepresent what
I sent you, please do forward my transmission. My comments about degrees of
complexity were in the context of Rosen's statement about having more than
one distinct way of interacting with a system thereby requiring a very
distinct formal system (or subsystem for each interaction mode). I still do not
subscribe to your wish to include simple systyems (those which we
interact with in ONLY one way[usy\ually the reductionist way via the Newtonian
Paradigm] as having some ammount of complexity. I think that this would be
VERY counterproductive.
>Also, which is more general or specific is relative to your
>viewpoint. In the sense that Rosen's definition can be seen as a
>special case of mine it is more specific. In the sense that his
>definition forms a part of a very general approach, it can be seen as
>more general (since you can't isolate bits like the difinition from
>his thought). Enough said, I suggest when we use the terms
>specific/general when arguing about this we make that claim clear.
>
You seem to have a very strong proprietary interest in being "more general".
Rosen spends a good part of many books and papers (see for example the tribute
to David Bohm edited by Peat) making what seems to be a fundamental
epistemological point. That is that physics is special relative to biology and
not the reverse. This is because, until very recently, physics has been the
science of simple systems while biology by lack of choice if nothing else,
has had to deal with complexity. (Unfortunately, the empitacists among us
solved the problem by killing the object of study and reducing it to simple
systems). No, in my view, your desire to incorporate simple systems into
youe idea of complexity makes your approach VERY specific.
>Yes, I understand the difficulties in the idea of "objective"
>discussion. My intent was to signal a wish for a slightly less
>guarded and polarised debate - to ease the development of new
>(unpredicted!) sysntheses and opositions. Surely HERE we are amoung,
>if not friends, at least, no enemies.
>
It is a distortion to imply that I spoke in terms of "friends and enemies".
Heretofore, we either continue these discussions in public, since you are in
a position to censor my transmissions and misrepresent them. What I did refer
to is the fact that science in the ideal does not exist. We do science in a
climate of funding, Journal editors and referees, meeting invitations, etc.
If that's not political, then I must be misinformed about definitions again!
I also am very aware of people who did not submit to reductionist dogma being
jobless. Rosen in particular is a veteran of the demise of the Center of
Theoretical Biology at SUNY @ Buffalo (I was there to and can relate to the
events in a first hand way) and the fiasco surrounding the "Red House"
at Dalhousie which I only know bits and pieces about. My point has been
simply this: there is always a consequence to scientific discourse. There
is also
an underlying bias in each one's position. These are better acknowledged than
denied.
>Some of the confusion, comes, I think, from different understandings
>of what is "reductionist". You, a scientist, working within
>(around?) the confines of its tradition, see reductionism as
>defined, at least somewhat, by the happenstance of that tradition.
>I, coming from a mathematical/philsophical background, would define it in
>_more_ absolute terms - something like "Reductionism is that school
>of thought which believes that, in principle, every problem can be
>decomposed eventually into simple ones". From this viewpoint
>Thom's analytic tools are as much part of reductionism as Newton's -
>both can be used to obtain *some* understanding of some systems or
>not as the case may be. The fact that they belong to different
>Kuhnian scientific paradigms is (politics aside) irrelevant.
>
Here I can best be brief by refering you to Peacocke's "Reductionism
in academic disciplines" which makes it clear that it goes well beyond
science. My own comments to you were that it shapes our very social
organization, but again, they are lost in your version of what I said.
>Such distractions aside, I will come back with some examples to
>consider to further the core of this discussion, I have to go now.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------
>Bruce Edmonds
>Centre for Policy Modelling,
>Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building,
>Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH. UK.
>e-mail b.edmonds@mmu.ac.uk
>Tel no. +44 161 247 6479 Fax no +44 161 247 6802
>WWW. http://bruce.edmonds.name/bme_home.html
>
What you call "distractions" I see as insepaerable. (am I accusing
you of a reductionist stance? I'm afraid so. Sorry, but that's what I see.
This is a process. Every aspect of it is integral. You can not
separate your very pure "quest for truth" from everything it is imbedded in.
To claim you can is very much in the spirit of reduction and fragmentation.
I don't think you will agree. As I said many times in our private discussion,
which you also chose not to convey, is that we are best agreeing to disagree.
C'est la vie. Best wishes, Don Mikulecky
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