complexity and Complexity

["Judith Rosen" <***>]

Thanks, Tim-- I took a look at the two sources you suggested, and did some
research on my own as well. It seems to me that this type of "complexity"
that Bak is describing is what my father would call simplicity; how grains
of sand behave in an ever-increasing pile. He would say that's not complex
at all. He would also say that it is entirely within the realm of
contemporary physics to explain that sort of phenomena. But he would
challenge Bak's assertion that the very same explanation for a pile of sand
shifting is what explains why living things are alive. The trouble arises in
the fact that some processes in complex systems (such as living organisms)
are analogous to simple systems in that they are "computable", but that
ignores the difference:   those processes are not organized the way a
complex system is--an organization which can maintain its cohesion through
its own dynamic, as an atom can or as an organism can. The organization of
any process within in a living system completely loses cohesion if you try
to take it out of the organism. The process is generated and maintained by
its place and function within the organization of the larger system.
(Interestingly, the opposite is not always true; an organism can often adapt
to the loss of the function that was being served by the process and can
maintain its own cohesion in adapted form.) It is that difference in
organization that my father was talking about and that he said was outside
the purview of physics as it stands today. That means that the word
complexity as Bak uses it is not at all what it is when my father uses it.
Sort of like catholic and Catholic or deaf and Deaf.

I've had people say to me, over these past four years since my father died,
that they are surprised that Robert Rosen isn't more widely known. Why, for
example, isn't he mentioned in any of the articles I looked at researching
Per Bak? There's no cross reference at all, that I could see. I don't know
what the answer is to that question. My father was not interested in being
known. I used to ask him if it was irksome to see someone (like Per Bak)
being touted as a groundbreaker and a genius and all that, when my father
knew how limited their vision really was. He shrugged and said, "What do I
care what people think? I'm not doing it for them." I always found that
frustrating as I was growing up. Now I admire it.

Judith
Website address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com/
My favorite discussion list (Independent-- Not part of Rosen Enterprises):
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