[no subject]

["John M" <***>]

Dear Roberto,

I read your paper, a well crafted scientific work. I cannot reply to it on
this list, because it came (PDF) disallowing the 'copy' function, or the
"write in between lines" which are the tools for picking on phrases. It is
121Kb long.

You seem to work in ontology rather while I consider it a snapshot in the
actual view (belief) of a structural (static) existence. In my views the
world (nature? existence?) is "change", a dynamic flow
of influences concerning a constantly altered wholeness.
You said: I am epistemic, well, epistemology provides in its constant
enrichment the current (up-to-date) basis for an
"ontology" which is IMO very temporary. Ancient time geniuses
had a much less comprehensive cognitive inventory to go on
than we discovered lately (which is also not "all of it"). So I do
not choose the 19th c. thinkers as patterns in a flow which dates back to
the cave and included the Flat Earth, Newtonism, QM, solipsism, religious
aberrations, etc. and in its present phase (to which Rosenism belongs) in my
terms "wholeness view", (called 'complexity-view, endogenous impredicative,
or else -
none fitting). I consider the line started with D. Bohm and Rosen
the former as influencing me into the field.

I do not consider this permanent either, so I would wait with
"my ontology" another 1-2 millennia to better see if we can
identify the world at all.

Your views are of course definitely reductionistic, not a fault,
I hurry to say, but not in the wholistic (Rosenite) line either.
I had discussions with advanced thinkers "in layers" (Gad
Yagil), "in strata" (Paul Prueitt), in "hierarchy" (Stan Salthe)
to name some (and others), I am on the side of a one-total
interconnection, in which our modeling separates all those
aspects, expressed in the terms which reductionist science
uses for its really efficient search. It is hard to identify units and work
"in" them and view a horizon encompassing totality if we remove those
boundaries which WE have set.
Topical view is modeling, setting boundaries cutting off both
topical connections and functional influences (in quality AND in
quantitative limitations):  the 'cleaned' topic is ready for a study.

Which brings me to a hotter point: reality.
Although you use better terms: separate "realms" (wider
models, I don't fight 'that'), reality is another topic I fought not without
success, although I am not a missionary and don't want
to change anybody's thinking.
In my opinion 'our reality' is the interpretation of the mind about
something we have no other access to. It is virtual indeed.
'Objective', however,  is our view about "the world" so it is subjective
indeed.
We have no means/aspect outside ourselves (our mind)  to
identify what influences us into thoughts and percepts.

"Levels" of this 'reality' are our fabrications 'how we slice it'.
We are not capable to regard the entire wholism (not the least
because the "tool" we use in our thinking: the material brain,
with its restricted functional capabilities). So we cut it into strata,
layers, topics, realms, topics, systems, domains, whatever.

You wrote:
">I can understand "atemporal" (say: math). I can understand "aspatial"
(feelings). Have troubles with "atemporal AND aspatial".<

I wrote these words as "no time" and "no space" identified in
the wholeness, both coordinates for the mind to categorize.
It is very hard to think without these crutches. QM got into a
credibility-crisis when (atemporarily) cause and effect got interchangable.
In the wholeness it is no problem: a "cause"
is a model we chose topically for an event within our reductionist
observation from the innumerable influences reaching everything
all the 'time'. Our 'cause' satisfies the boundaries around the
topical models in its topically recognised event.

I don't want to fight you, I think irresponsibly: I am responsible
to no pupils for teachings I delivered earlier (I was in polymer
science and did really reductionstic work), no faculty to explain
my thoughts to, I don't publish to justify my latest views to any
referees, I am a free thinker. I change my views as I learn.  99.99+% of
humanity thinks differently from me. That's OK.
I wouldn't have gone into so much detail, hadn't you not
countered my thoughts so skillfully that Judith wrote:
you are right.

I wonder if it was Botzman or Planck who said (at old age): "In
order to make a new (physical) theory accepted first the old
professors have to die. I am a young revolutionist.
What's more: I have no vocabulary to express the new ideas
adequately - starting with the ominous "complex".

With best professional appreciation

John Mikes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roberto Poli" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 3:21 AM


John,
see comments below

>Dear Roberto,

>what you wrote makes a lot of sense - in the sense of conventional i.e.
>reductionist science thinking.

difficult to believe. My levels of reality have been designed precisely
as a rigorous antireductionist viewpoint. The dialectics between "wholes"
and "levels" makes the antereductionist stance even stronger. For details
you may look at my "the basic problem of the theory of levels of reality"
(http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1122-1151). Please note that I didn't
know Rosen's work when I wrote that paper.


>I think Rosen stepped a bit ahead of that to say it mildly.
>However...what Judith wrote was for the 'detatched' crowd as an entrainer
into accepting (and maybe getting interested in) Rosen's world. R.R. >let
it
go as such. As Judith wrote:

> It was the kind of thing he would leave for other people to do if they
wanted to.

>A conciliant philosopher (although he did not like to be called one), not
a warrior. (IMO). The "levels of complexity" she mentioned is a
hard-to->understand concept, it involves the different kinds of models RR
described, including the "natural systems" with 'really' reductionist
modeling, >but extended into impredicative connotations of unlimited natural
features. My wording is a bit different, I follow the opposite route to
RR: he >extended the biologic vue into general, I start from the general
vue and identify IN IT the sciences we know (as reductionistic - topically
cut >models).  In the end we come very close together (except for his
mathematics what I don't condone in a wholistically unlimited worldview,
but >now this is beside the point).
>

>Let us take a look at some of your concepts:

>part-whole hierarchies: partds are limited models of the whole, a hierarchy
is constructed according to our modelling of cause, history, >subordination
of ideas/parts, etc. - as I believe mentioned by Rosen as "the other"
system.


Looks rather weird. Entities have structure, i.e. they are made of something
arranged in some specific way. Entities may be decomposed and the resulting
parts may still be decomposed at a finer degree of granularity. What results
is a hierarchy of part/whole connections. Where's the odds?

What really matters is to have the capacity of distinguishign different
kinds of wholes, say; aggregates, wholes in the proper sense, and systems.
Descriptively: aggregates are given by parts "close enough" to each other
(according to some criterium of closeness); wholes are given by parts with
"proximity" plus "solidarity", meaning that they "move togheter": if you
push one of the legs of your chair to the left, the whole chair moves to
the
left (take this as the default situation); systems are given by proximity,
plus solidarity plus dynamicity: i.e. systems are dynamical wholes. Each
type of whole has its own set of laws. Needless to say, problems start to
arise at the system layer .

All this may looks rather reductionistic. It would be such if it were the
whole picture. On the other hand, my proposal is to consider the part/whole
analysis as one of the dimensions of analysis, not as the whole picture.



>main realms of reality: my tuppence on reality is the mind's (quite
subjective) interpretation of impacts it receives - bith from inside and
outside. It >is "our" reality, a subjective, virtual representation.



that's your viewpoint. I simply disagree. Cognitions and internal
representations are activities performed by some types of system, namely
systems able to represent themselves and their environment. One may provide
a perfectly objective description of the conditions that those systems have
to respect in order to play their role. I may be wrong, but understand
Rosen's work as a perfectly objective reconstruction of this viewpoint.

Please note that you have completely skipped what I was saying about levels
of reality.



>Don't be misled by long term and generally accepted beliefs, the historical
thought is based on ancient reductionist development based on much >less
information than acquired lately. Epistemology is progressing and we don't
want to stagnate at a less comprehensive level of the cognitive >inventory
of human thinking.


this may be the real point of departure between us: I am developing an
ontological analysis, not an epistemological one. In this sense, it is you
that are following the 20th century dominant viewpoint according to which
epistemology governs analysis. To my mind, the truth is the other way round:
ontology sets the agenda.



>simplest kinds of entities: in the total interconnectedness we form models
according to the topic, our needs, our capabilities etc. and we 'study'
>such "entities" in reductionist science (analytically, to dissect the mpdel
into 'parts' we contemplated as knowable, useful and necessary for the
>appropriate study). An entity is simple, if we cut it short at very
restricted connotations - although the "thing" may have very complicated

>(contrary of simple) connotations we just did  not include into the model.

>

>"life": As far as I heard, RR never identified it, only "living state".



Taken



>A sort of interinfluencing process (complexity) in my terms.

>There are extended discussions on lists whether organizations,     (both
social and biologic), systems (both ideational and social etc.) are 'live',
>extending the "water-carbon" based Darwinian cut-off into a general vue,
even including the entire universe.



>time: a similar quagmire to life. A matter of unrelenting debates.

>I consider atemporal and aspatial thinking as well, with time and space
parameters for the vue we developed within the universe. (This is in my
>personal worldview - multi-universal and beyond).



I can understand "atemporal" (say: math). I can understand "aspatial"
(feelings). Have troubles with "atemporal AND aspatial".



>I think your views are not anti-Roseanite, rather, as ALL OF US, deeply
anchored in the reductionist thinking (the only one we can muster >really).
I did a strenuous exercise to get out of it - partially succeeded only -
and
so did Rosen.



Let's come back after you have read my paper referred to above, if you would
like to do it.



cheers, r

*************************************
Dr Roberto Poli, PhD
Editor-in-chief of Axiomathes, Kluwer:
http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1122-1151
Papers and other information
http://www.mitteleuropafoundation.it
preferred e-mail: ***