Re: Function, Symbiosis - action of models

["Dan Fiscus" <***>]

Tim and John,

I was away camping...now back...saw this question to me and
have some speculative replies:

Tim Gwinn wrote:

>>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
>>
>>
>
>
>Dan, can you comment/elaborate on this? This does seem like a very important
>facet.
>
>

Well I started to form a reply and then read this...

>>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).
>>
>>
>
>
>Intriguing! I think it may perhaps be an unavoidable aspect as participatory
>beings in the world. Even extended into the realm of private (internal)
>ideas, unless we excuse them as somehow "beyond" the world - which I reject.
>

I would echo these ideas - that being in the world is to alter it, most
likely irreversibly and often with very large ripple effects that can be
amplified by connections outside us. In the more obvious cases, to
make a model, then publish it (communicate quite widely to the
world), we would create a kind of entity that can be replicated and
altered and also embodied as in used to build technology. By these
various actions the act of making the model and the model itself
work to alter the world. My recent short hand story of this principle
in modern times is that since the creation of the novel and generalized
model of "world as machine" (Newton, Descartes et al.) and due to
the world-altering network of indirect effects the world has become
more and more like a machine (major signs of wear and tear and
corrosion and break down and rube-goldberg-ization in the
contraptions concocted to counteract such degradation). On the flip
side, the world (our planetary environmental home, biosphere in
general) will surely not be able to "heal itself" as long as the "world
as machine" is the dominant mental model of Homo sapiens (major
world alterers at the present time in history). I say this because
that is not part of the concept or model of machine - they don't
heal themselves. So, in my view, either Homo sapiens must cease
to be the "prime movers" on earth, or the mental model must change
to something more like "world as alive", at which point the possibility
does arise for self-healing of something as large and complex as
our high-interconnected and interdependent biosphere, which no
one can control or force to heal from "outside" or top-down as
some centralized World Saving Institution.

One other set of ideas to bolster this, perhaps not directly, but
perhaps even better in that it is indirect...

This is also sorta a reply to Tim's question re: system failures and
that book on unintended consequences...

Bernie Patten is a systems ecologist who promotes the importance
of indirect effects in ecosystem networks as a central organizing
principle and key to life's special powers. One article in which he
dwells on this is called Network ecology: indirect determination
of the life-environment relationship in ecosystems. This is a chapter
in the book Theoretical Studies of Ecosystems: The Network
Perspective, by M. Higashi and T.P. Burns, eds. 1991. Cambridge
Univ. Press. Bernie writes:

"...local interactions...are not, in general, very determining of
of behavior; immediate, direct interactions serve mainly to define
networks that, once in place and operating, holistically determine
the real, operational, ultimate or direct plus indirect relationships
between entities involved in complex ecological systems." p301

"Patten (1982a), for example, indicated that causal propagations
associated with combinatorially increasing numbers of extended
...paths traced out as transitions proceed through networks, vastly
dominate in magnitude the direct effects associated with direct
transitions over paths of length 1..." p301

There is a lot more, but it is hard to extract or quote out of
context. Suffice to say that if indirect effects are oftern greater
than direct effects in well-connected networks with cycles
and amplification, then the ultimate impact of a model (like its
ripple effects after its embodiment in technology) could be
much, much greater (in terms of energy, information, matter,
flux or content, spatial or temportal extent, etc.) than the
original and likely small entity of the model itself - perhaps the
original brain waves or connections of the modeler, or even the
written or spoken communication of it. And as these impacts
of a model as an "active agent" (or sign?) may be large in the
world in general, it is an easy extension to suggest that the
impact of the model on the modeler himself or herself may also
be very large.

So I like to proceed with this is mind, to be aware that what
I put out into the world (or even think, imagine, in my own
private, non-connected (?) mind) may very well come back
home to roost and may do so many times magnified. We might
do well to "be careful what we wish for", and also to take care
in our modeling. I do not think it at all the abstract or inert or
removed or dispassionate or objective practice that many
in science seem to take it to be.

Dan