Panmere

I missed the publication of this last month. The abstract [1]:
The major insight in Robert Rosen’s view of a living organism as an (M,R)-system was the realization that an organism must be “closed to efficient causation”, which means that the catalysts needed for its operation must be generated internally. This aspect is not controversial, but […]

In Introduction to Metamathematics, S.C. Kleene begins his chapter on Turing machines with the following informal characterization [1]:

Suppose that a person is to compute the value of a function for a given set of arguments by following preassigned effective instructions. In performing the computation he will use a finite number of distinct symbols or tokens […]

A 2006 paper attempting to criticize some of Rosen’s arguments, entitled “In Defense of Mechanism” by A.J. Wells [1], was recently brought to my attention. The paper makes a lengthy series of erroneous arguments based on misinterpretations of Rosen’s arguments. Wells begins with a list of statements drawn from Rosen’s Life Itself [2]. He then […]

Dominique Chu and Wen Kin Ho iterate their previous exercises in misunderstanding and misconstruing of Rosen’s work with their latest paper, “Computational Realizations of Living Systems“, in the Fall 2007 issue of the MIT journal Artificial Life [1]. The abstract:

Robert Rosen’s central theorem states that organisms are fundamentally different from machines, mainly because they are ‘‘closed with respect to efficient causation.” The proof […]

The recent paper by Chu and Ho prompt me to remark on both of their papers. I find numerous errors which void their argument and I discuss additional points.
The original central complaint in Chu-Ho 2006, section 5 [1]:

The problem of this becomes clear when one attempts to recover information about the mapping implemented by the component […]

The summer 2007 issue of Artificial Life is now available. As I previously mentioned, this issue contains three papers relevant to Rosen. They all revolve around the 2006 paper by Chu and Ho:

“A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models” by A.H. Louie

Abstract: “Chu and Ho’s recent article in Artificial Life is riddled with errors. In […]