Re: Function, Symbiosis, Parasitism

["John M" <***>]

Dear Tim,
I believe NOW we have something to discuss.
First our diferring use of some Anglicised Latin words:
"compromise" (noun). Your meaning of it clicked in immediately when I read
you: a changed (mostly into negative sense) meaning or an action to result
in that. As I used it (from my fundamental?) -Latin vocabulary and
continental European use) means "bridging equilibrating solution between
divergent opinions: compromissum.
I meant: find a way in between, not different, but less oppositional.
(It seems I cannot re-define English, sorry.)

Let me dismiss the long texts and quote only your parts I address
(the rest is on everybody's disc, or clickable from the archive).
so, from the
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Gwinn" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 12:56 AM
Subject: Re: Function, Symbiosis, Parasitism


> John,
> See interposed.
> Regards,
> Tim

> SNIP
Tim:
"I am pretty sure he meant "taking of limits" to refer to the mathematical
'limits' function, which is a transcendental function (that is, it is a
mathematical function that includes nonformalizable semantic aspects)."
This 'function' is beyond my math, but I feel a mathematical limit is
definitely a cut-off in the wholistic view: a reductionist tool. This is NOT
pejoratively meant... (I am all for ACTING reductionisticly).
*
Now comes the reason for my starting remark. Tim:
"I am not sure he would have used the term "compromising".
Certainly, alot of what his work showed was that the models commonly used
were 'compromised' in the sense of being inadequate for the task to which
they were put.
[[[you see: my different (wrong?) meaning of the "English" word]]]
In this way he used these failures in modeling as a way to show that
modeling as our way of understanding the world (modeling is "the habitat of
all epistemology") has limited capabilites, even when we broaden our
category of models to include relational models, etc. "

[[[ - I even widen the scope of "reductionst modeling" into all cuts in
topical etc. boundaries, including the "natural systems". I am not sure
whether Rosen thought of this and just suppressed it (in MY
'compromising') for being acceptable for the conventional readers, or did
not go that far in his first excursion beyond reductionistic thinking. At
first I did not go that far myself, only after learning about Rosen from
you, guys, over the past 3 years, when I already had my pretty Rosen-like
ideas for a decade. I accept him - as Judith so eloquently quoted him - for
a BEGINNING, not as a  dogmatic end (my paraphrasing). ]]]
Tim:
"The question is: just how much more complex/unlimited/etc *is* the world
beyond our limited capabilites to understand it? Well, if it is beyond our
limited capabilities, then can we even speak sensibly about that unknown?"

How could Nicolas de Cusa speak about heliocentrism which then led to the
Copernicus system? or Watson and Crick about chemical genetics? or Fulton
about drilling a hole in water (as the French Academy's rejection has put
it) to propagate ships? Our capabilities are subject to enrichment except
when we cave in to a defeatist dogmatism of ignorance. I feel we must try.
And we do.
*
Tim:
"For myself,  I say this: the world is *at least* as complex/unlimited/ etc.
as our epistemological probes into it reveal it to be, and how *much more*
complex/unlimited/etc.the world is remains an open question, probably
forever...."
[[[seems true]]]
"...This reiterative process of epistemological probes takes as a
(either tacit or explicit) presupposition that the world will always have
capabilities and features awaiting possible discovery. In this sense, the
process of modeling can be consistent with a view of an "unlimited" world.
.."
[[[ - I would use instead of "consistent" which I feel as "belonging to it"
rather: "necessary for our probing".]]]

Tim:
"...To me, the danger from generating the pieces of knowledge via models
lies in imputing that knowledge back to the world, globally and universally
stripped of the fact that these pieces of knowledge derive only from certain
models of certain subsections of the world in certain contexts using certain
formalisms and certain assumptions."

[[[You said it better than I ever could have. ]]]
The only thing that comes to mind countering these words is what Dan
mentioned lately and I still have to ponder about: that OUR models are
active in the world as such and reflect BACK on us, so our modeling may be
part of the world, not just as our reductionist thinking's mental tools ...
(- the way I caught it so far, maybe the wrong sense (Dan?) -   ...anyway
intriguing towards the "complexity" of the world we live in and study. I
always stated that not only a written, but also a spoken-out word is a
'reality' which one cannot disregard or make untold, now as I feel this may
be extended into the ideas as well? Or is it restricted to 'applied'
functional models (and in my added extension: only to 'communicated' ideas?)
Both have their "natural systemic" extensions (untold) so we MAY???
manipulate nature?
It is unbelievable! (I don't reject it though for this reason yet).

Thanks for your positive reply and mind-activating thoughts.

Regards

John