I agree that much is left out in "Life Itself". In particular, at the crucial
"punch line" he says (Chap 10 p 251) "I have since repeated this formal
argument many times in previous work and need not repeat it here." That, in
addition to the typos which you so carefully tabulated in your review, make it
very hard to get without extra reading. The best place for what is missing
here AND for what you ask for, IMHO, is the paper "Some Relational Cell
Models: The Metabolism-repair Systems" in vol II of "Foundations of
mathematical Biology"
pp 217-253. (1972) Academic Press.
Respectfully,
Don Mikulecky
Cliff Joslyn wrote:
> > 2. Rosen work on the applications of category theory to science was
> > fundamentaly flawed. (I sought recently to engage you in a conversation
> > on this matter, but you declined.) It is my opinion that these flaws
> > are so deep that I can not find the linkages between his mathematics and
> > living organisms. These flaws may or may not influence one's veiws of
> > complexity.
>
> I have also thought this, but was not sure if the flaw was in Rosen or
> in me!
>
> I'm currently involved in a project working with a good category
> theorist (Mae Gherke, Mathematics, NM State U.). I had given her my
> review of Rosen, and she had said that my description of Rosen's
> category theory didn't make much sense. But again, the problem might
> be as much in me as in him!
>
> Mae is, however, very interested in considering Rosen's ideas more
> seriously. Other than _Life Itself_ itself, (a very flawed book from a
> mathematical perspective, if only for notational problems), can
> someone suggest the best vehicle to expose a mathematician to Rosen's
> category theory ideas?
>
> O------------------------------------------------------------------------>
> | Cliff Joslyn, Member of the Technical Staff (Cybernetician at Large)
> | Distributed Knowledge Systems Team, Computer Research Group (CIC-3)
> | Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop B265, Los Alamos NM 87545 USA
> | joslyn@lanl.gov http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn (505) 667-9096
> V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .