[Fwd: Re: The Growth of Structural and Functional Complexity

Bruce Edmonds (b.edmonds@MMU.AC.UK)
Tue, 5 Mar 1996 10:15:47 +0000


Received: from DEFIANCE_MAIL by AY_DEFIANCE (Mercury 1.21); 5 Mar 96 09:30:09
GMT
Return-path: <HANSS@sepa.tudelft.nl>
Received: from ehlana.mmu.ac.uk by defiance.mmu.ac.uk (Mercury 1.21) with ESMTP;
5 Mar 96 09:30:05 GMT
Received: from sepa.tudelft.nl (actually zon.sepa.tudelft.nl) by ehlana
with SMTP (PP); Tue, 5 Mar 1996 09:38:42 +0100
Received: from zondisk.sepa.tudelft.nl (zondisk.sepa.tudelft.nl [130.161.216.6])
by sepa.tudelft.nl (8.7/8.7) with ESMTP id KAA08056
for <B.Edmonds@MMU.AC.UK>; Tue, 5 Mar 1996 10:27:17 +0100 (MET)
Received: from ZONDISK/SpoolDir by zondisk.sepa.tudelft.nl (Mercury 1.21);
5 Mar 96 10:39:59
Received: from SpoolDir by ZONDISK (Mercury 1.21); 5 Mar 96 10:39:36
From: Hans-Cees Speel <HANSS@sepa.tudelft.nl>
To: Bruce Edmonds pcp <B.Edmonds@MMU.AC.UK>
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 10:39:34 MET
Subject: Re: The Growth of Structural and Functional Complexity duri
Reply-to: hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl
Priority: normal
X-mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22)
Message-ID: <EC022C13F2@zondisk.sepa.tudelft.nl>
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011

> This is not so far as you might think from Rosen. What he does is to
> deal directly with the question of how do we ascertain these attributes?
> Then the definition focuses on the number of distinct ways with which
> we can interact with the system. (distinct meaning ways which are NOT
> derivable from each other)
> >
> It is useful to distinguish between "parts" and "functional components" as
> both Rosen and Kampis do. The mappings between them are often the key
> to the system's functional identity. Components often can not be
> reduced or fractionated into parts.

I fhtis is both true, then we can distinguish in components, that are
not functional parts, can we not? So that means that we can have
distinguishable components, thaqt are functionally dependant, but
still distinguishable as structural components.
Hull for instance makes the difference between structural and
functional wholes in the example of genes, where a gene can be
defined as a functional whole [that which makes your eye blue, if
that has some significance evolutionary], and that which lies next to
each other on a chromosome for instance. [without claiming that hull
is the best and forever:-)]

greetings,

Hans-Cees

Theories come and go, the frog stays [F. Jacob]
-------------------------------------------------------
|Hans-Cees Speel School of Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and management
|Technical University Delft, Jaffalaan 5 2600 GA Delft PO Box 5015 The
Netherlands
|telephone +3115785776 telefax +3115783422 E-mail hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl
HTTP://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/hanss.html featuring evolution and memetics!