A very good approach. I like this whole thing, and am hopeful that we'll
get some good PCP Web pages out of it. Remember, we're aiming for some kind
of partial consensus, as large as possible.
>#1: An entity that may not be able to be separated from a system and retain
> its identity or definition.
>Example: ???
>Suggested term: component
Be careful: are you assuming any a priori relation between the "entity" and
the "system"? In particular, in there an assumption here that the "entity"
as a "part" of the "system"? Furthermore, is the identity of the entity
necessarily in the context of its embedding in the system? A liver is still
a liver if I remove it from my body. But if you remove a hurricane from the
earth it will not be a hurricane any more. But you don't want to call a
hurricane a component, and I think you would my liver.
>#2: An entity that retains its identity and definition when separated from a
> system.
>Example: resistor, transistor, capacitor, engine, wheel, etc.
>Suggested term: part
According to the semiotics of artifacts, and in keeping with Wittgenstenian
philosophy of language, tools (like words) have no identify or definition
(function) removed from their USE AS tools within a larger semiotic
community. A hammer can be used as an anvil, and vice versa. Take out a
transister from the machine, it really ISN'T a transistor: it's now just a
hunk of silicon.
>#3: A system that produces all of its own components.
>Example: cell
>Suggested term: Self-producing
>
>#4: A system that produces its own components and also has the capability
> to make a copy of itself.
>Example: a cell
>Suggested term: Self-re-producing
So all extant self-producing systems are also self-reproducing?
>#11: The event of demonstrating some concept by a means that does not
> have the same causal structure).
>Example: artificial life on computers
>Suggested term: Simulation
>
>#12: The event of demonstrating some concept by a means that retains the
> same causal structure:
>Example: using a current through a resistor with a certain conductance that
> connects an electrical potential difference to demonstrate the
> material flow through a membrane with a certain permeability that
> separates (or connects) a chemical concentration difference.
>Suggested term: model
These last two are of a radically different nature from 1-10, because
you're now dealing explicitly with descriptions or models of things rather
than things themselves.
O---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
| Mail Code 522.3, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
| joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov http://groucho.gsfc.nasa.gov/joslyn 301-286-2598
V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .