I have no problem with that. Different types of systems need different
types of models, languages or even "logics" to describe them most
accurately. No model or language can perfectly or completely describe any
kind of system, so you always need different, partial representations. I
have made a PhD thesis exactly on that topic.
>As far as I can tell, most scientists, including yourself, fail to
>adjust their methologies or thought modes to suit the logical typing of
>the area they are attempting to figure out, model or deal with.
I don't think I fail to adjust my thought mode. I think you fail to
understand my thought mode. You seem to have some prejudice against
scientists in general, a category to which I belong, although I am a not
very typical exponent of it.
>Thus a scientist or computer specialist or mathematician might attempt
>to deal with political or cultural issues with what has been called
>their "monological" approach to everything. And just because they talk
>about or use a wholistic systems approach or recognize what they call
>emerging properties does not fundamentally change their approach. If
>you can see that we can't explain social change by using the laws of
>physics, you ought to be able to see that mathematics, number systems
>and the scientific method are also out of sync with the real system
>under examination.
If you would go so far as to claim that one should abandon the scientific
method, I don't follow anymore. For me the scientific methods simply says
that you should express your ideas as unambiguously as possible, so that
everyone would as much as possible understand them in the same way
(formalization), and so that their implications can be tested
(operationalization), thus allowing us to retain good ideas and abandon bad
ones. If you don't accept that, I don't understand what you are doing here
on the PRNCYB mailing list, where after all we are trying to clarify ideas
so that they can in principle be applied and tested in some way.
The scientific method does not apply merely to one type of system, it is a
"metamethodology". It does not give you one type of model, but a way to
investigate models of whatever type. Similarly, mathematics is a
metalanguage, which does not claim to describe "the world as it is", but
which gives you a tool to create different types of models or even
different types of logics (yes!). Of course, some domains lend themselves
better to mathematical modelling (e.g. particle physics), others less (e.g.
poetry). But that does not mean that you should a priori exclude the
possibility to make mathematical models of poetry.
You should simply remember that a model is only a model, not the one and
only truth. All models are incomplete. Some are better in one respect,
others are better in another respect. Unless you can give me a "logic" that
perfectly describes the system you are talking about, I don't see any
reason not to try describing that system with a different logic. All
"logics" work to some degree. Some work better for one type of system,
others work better for another type of system, but none works perfectly for
any system.
> My question remains: Why do you think scientists in
>particular keep making these mistakes over and over again?
What are precisely these "mistakes" that we are being accused of, and why
are they mistakes? You seem so convinced of your own point that you don't
even do the effort to argue that the other position is wrong.
>> In conclusion, there are important differences between biological and
>> cultural evolution, but not to the degree that both cannot be encompassed
>> within the larger "blind variation and natural selection" paradigm.
>>
>
>The above statement is overwhelming evidence of the validity of the
>point I tried to make above.
Apparently, you have already decided that whatever I call a "blind
variation and natural selection" paradigm is just wrong logic which cannot
be applied to both cultural and biological evolution. I suppose you mean
that each should be described by its own logic that has nothing to do with
the other. As I said, unless you can give me a "logic" differently from
mine which perfectly describes cultural evolution, I see no reason why I
should not attempt to understand it with a "variation and selection" logic.
This is just one method to tackle the problem among many, which of course
will never answer all questions. But I just happen to believe that this
"logic" is extremely flexible, much more so than the logic of physical law,
or whatever logic I expect you to propose, and therefore it seems like a
good heuristic to start tackling an intrinsically very complex problem.
I suspect one of your problems is that you seem to think that the "logical
types" are absolute, universal categories, which are intrinsically
different and therefore cannot be described using the same tools. But that
assumption itself is an arbitrary "logic", which believes that the world
can be split up in discrete categories. I happen to think that a more
flexible logic would start from the observation that any two systems are
both different in some respects, and similar in others. The degree of
difference can vary continuously between systems. A more flexible logic
would therefore be able to describe similarities, if necessary only at a
very high level of abstraction (such as "both are systems" or "both can be
observed"), as well as differences.
For example, although there is a very important difference between living
and non-living systems, they can still both be characterized by properties
such as organization, structure, energy, development, etc. With some effort
of the imagination, you can also conceive of systems that are kind of
intermediate between life and non-life (e.g. hypercycles, autocatalytic
sets, etc.). If you ever want to explain the origin of life, you will need
to conceive of such systems. How would you ever be able to describe such
intermediate systems if you have one logic for living systems and another
one for non-living systems? This is a question I have asked more than once
to Don Mickulecky when he emphasizes Rosen's essential distinction between
living ("complex") and non-living ("simple"), but I haven't yet got a
satisfactory answer.
________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Francis Heylighen, Systems Researcher fheyligh@vub.ac.be
CLEA, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel +32-2-6442677; Fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html