John J. Kineman wrote:
> Further thoughts:
>
> Don, I give my detailed responses to your points in the text in an attempt
> to clarify what I'm saying. But have a look at my response to your final
> summary comment before engaging too much on the details of our different
> descriptions. I think I understand your orientation better from the last
> remark.
>
> At 01:09 PM 2/17/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Don Mikulecky replies:
>
> ....
>
> >He was very clear about relational biology being dualistic to physics.
>
> I believe this refers to mechanical theories in physics, not the discipline
> itself. That, of course, includes most of it except that non-mechanical
> concepts (hard to formalize) are also present in physics, the discipline.
This is also what brian Josephson says. It really isn't a big issue in my mind.
>
>
> >He never
> >intended it to INCLUDE physics.
>
> I glean from Rosen's writings that the mechanical view is a simple case of
> the relational view (a modeling relation with a simple system model). Hence
> it "includes" it in the sense of being more primary, even though it would
> not employ the same terms generally (the exact terms used in any simple
> system model will be unique to that decomposition). Is that an acceptable
> statement?
I hate to disagree, but I do. He shows that machines can have relational models
too. Then he shows how these relational models help distinguish machines from
complex systems. He never includes the mechanistic view in the relational view.
What he says is....."it is my contention that contemporary physics has locked
itself into this world..." [the world of mechanisms].
"I contrasted 'contemporary physics' with 'ideal physics"....."
"...the relational approach.....has a formal counterpart....the essence of it is
'throwing away the matter and keeping the organization'....."
> There are entire papers to back up these statements if you want the
> references. There is no way you can see any reminant of contemporary physics
> surviving in this new approach.
>
> >He also was clear about it being still one more
> >formalism.
>
> Yet one that allows for complexity because it does not enforce
> unidirectional time and thus the mathematical simplifications that implies???
> no, it creates a dichotomy between simple and complex systems which is clearly
> defined. The time issues have the same meaning in both parts of that
> dichotomy..
> ..................
>
> >> ... I think
> >> we can say that Rosen shows the limits of the objective view. It is
> >> unnecessary to call it a "myth" in all cases (except to call attention to
> >> the important exceptions).
> >
> >Then I guess you disagree with Rosen who did not believe in objectivity in
> the
> >sense we are using the word. When you take the step into recognizing the
> role
> > of
> >the modeling relation in our thinking, the objective/subjective distinction
> >disappears.
> >
>
> Incorrect guess, but let me try to word what I'm saying better and see if
> this makes the grade:
>
> Rosen was engaged in a life-long struggle against narrow minds. This is
> apparent from his biography. It is natural in that struggle to emphasize
> the differences rather than the areas of overlap. Clearly, however, there
> is a simple model, call it mechanism, that when applied in Rosen's modeling
> relation you get the mechanical view. If this were not true, we would have
> to abandon Rosen's view as a deeper understanding of reality.
maybe you would, I certainly wouldn't...the way he describes it is that
historically, the Newtonian Paradigm became the ONLY formal system for science
to
encode the natural world into. The encoding and decoding were forgotten about
and ontologically the Newtonian world view BECAME the natural system! Thus the
modeling relation became degenerate and it became necessary to revive the
consciousness which led to that situation and deal with it.
>
>
> E.g., F=ma is a Newtonian/mechanical/dynamic "law." Its validity follows
> from the nature of a space/topology defined by dynamics (Rosen's "Beyond
> Dynamical Systems). That topological space, Rosen argues, follows from the
> modeling relation when you make the simplifying assumptions about
> computability, unidirectional time, etc. that Rosen identifies with the
> mechanical view. He says this is a limited case of the more general
> mathematics, and that in this limited case we've discarded what HE is
> primarily interested in; complexity and any possible explanation of life.
I'm not sure why you say this?
>
>
> Yet this argument requires that the mechanical/dynamic laws be considered
> valid for those systems which conform to mechanical assumptions to the
> level of precision a mechanist might be concerned with. I would not bother
> with any of Rosen's stuff to predict the trajectory of a baseball, for
> example; and I doubt that he would have objected to that. Similarly, we do
> not need relativity if we are working with extremely sub-light speeds, and
> we do not need the modeling relation if we are only interested in machines.
> Each is a specific case of something more general. Since Rosen believed
> that life isn't possible in a machine, he was primarily interested in
> exploring beyond dynamical systems (beyond the mechanical paradigm), and in
> that field the mechanical/dynamic laws don't work because we are now
> relaxing the mathematical assumptions that allowed them to work for
> mechanical systems.
so what is the point?
>
>
> I believe I am consistent with Rosen by saying F=ma is not an absolute, but
> is valid for a specifically defined kind of system, in fact a kind we are
> very used to perceiving and find it hard to think beyond. The "mechanical
> paradigm" problem is when people think it applies to everything, whereas
> Rosen's view says it is limited. That is not the same as saying it is
> useless, invalid for those systems it is defined for, or that it must be
> completely discarded by everyone working in all fields.
>
> Is this any better?
you totally lost me now...sorry
>
>
> >> The objective/Newtonian view is a quite good
> >> model for classical systems and we will not abandon it when describing
> >> perceptual objects such as moving bodies (cars, rocks, planets, golf balls,
> >> etc.) or in predicting material structures (as in engineering and most of
> >> physics).
> >
> >As long as we are happy with the inherent limitations of doing that. A very
> >conscious SUBJECTIVE choice!
>
> Yes, that's my point as well, and I'm more interested in the cases where
> these limitations don't exist, as you are and Rosen was. But I don't want
> to imply that there aren't completely valid uses for mechanical models.
> I'll use one when I drive home, for example, and I expect it to behave
> completely like a machine.
>
> ...............
> >
> > I'd be more comfortable calling Rosen's contributions epistemological
> rather
> >than a "general theory". That notion is so contrary to the spirit of
> everything
> >he did. The main message I get from his ideas about complexity is that to
> think
> >in terms of "general theories" is to wish for a bigger and better surrogate
> > world
> >like the one the reductionists did so well.
> >
> >Just my opinion,
> >Don
>
> Hmm. This REALLY helps me understand where you are comming from in your
> critique of my descriptions -- and suggests that my "clarification" may not
> help too much. I DO accept your distinction, however, between
> "epistemological" and "general theory." I agree from what I've seen so far
> that Rosen was building the foundation from which others could extract more
> specific theories. His was a "worldview" rather than a theory, ant thus
> better identified as "epistemological."
>
> The best I can do with the rest of this is to repeat my tentative opinion
> that Rosen was engaged in a life-long struggle that (understandably) seems
> to have made him rather sensitive on the point about scientific dogmatism.
> I for one would not consider ANY theory, general or otherwise, or ANY law
> as absolute. That's just automatic in my thinking. They are all
> approximations of reality. So, from that perspective, it is sensible to
> think of "better" approximations, which then can also be called "more
> general" simply because that's the word the philosophers have chosen.
>
The key phrase in all of Rosen's writings is "...the number of ways you can
interact with a complex system......" which is always followed by the idea that
even an infinite set of such descriptions only recaptures the system in the
limit. If you don't accept that, then Rosen will be a waste of time for you
> The mechanical paradigm approximated the world we are able to observe
> externally.
No it created a surrogate world which served a purpose.
> What aggrivated Rosen (and many others) seems to be the
> tendancy for many people to assume they had approximated everything, or
> that it wasn't an approximation but the "final truth."
He repeatedly said that they had created a surrogate world.
> But only the
> narrowest scientist did this (i.e., most of the bunch). The ones making the
> greatest cross-disciplinary advances either knew better or learned better.
Not according to Rosen
> If we imagine a time when it is commonly understood that mechanism cannot
> capture life, then I think much of our sensitivity about this will be
> needless paranoia. Indeed, one has to wonder if being defensive about a
> broader view is beneficial at any stage. Only those who see the broader
> view can fully accept that it exists, and their first excursions will be
> made while tightly holding onto the familiar. I have found that relaxing my
> more dogmatic physical views has been a gradual process, still in progress.
>
> Now one final point to stir the pot again and suggest that we are all prone
> to some dogmatism. I do get the impression that Rosen may at least tacitly
> ascribe absolute validity to the entire realm of mathematics. Is
> mathematics itself an approximation of reality, or is "God a
> mathematician" -- in Rosen's view?
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> John J. Kineman, Physical Scientist/Ecologist
> National Geophysical Data Center
> 325 Broadway E/GC1 (3100 Marine St. Rm: A-152)
> Boulder, Colorado 80303 USA
> (303) 497-6900 (phone)
> (303) 497-6513 (fax)
> jjk@ngdc.noaa.gov (email)
Rosen made it very clear that the Cartesian mechanistic view with its lack of
entailment made god necessary!
Sorry to keep dissapointing you. I suggest STRONGLY that you restrict your use
of
his autobiography to just that! If you want to talk about his science go back
to
his many, many, many scientific writings where he labored to make these things
clear as possible.
Respectfully,
Don