Re: Excerpts from Robert Rosen's last book notes:

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Continuing to mull over these excerpts.....

I find the format of them interesting. The style of remarks and questions is
strikingly similar to that of the later Wittgenstein (Investigations,
Blue/Brown Books, Zettel, etc.). I've always admired what I saw as
Wittgenstein's willingness to pose questions and leave them open, rather
than presenting a convenient answer or facile theory.

I find the excerpts below to be of similar ilk. And I sometimes think that
as deeply informative as Rosen's books are, they are also heavily laden with
open questions - sometimes explicit, sometimes not. Perhaps some of the
difficulty in finding agreement on "what he meant" arises from those
pregnant questions.

It seems to me that remarks and questions below follow from some very basic
considerations (e.g., measurement as interaction of multiple systems). But
it seems that most investigators are unwilling to follow these consequences
or even acknowledge them, most of which lead to very messy tangles. But
because they are so basic, it seems to me, that they pervade the entire
enterprise of science; thereby demanding that we attend to them.

Tim


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Judith
> Rosen
> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:28 AM
> To: ***
> Subject: Excerpts from Robert Rosen's last book notes:
>
>
> I'm going to post a few things from his handwritten notes for the
> list. It's
> short, but these were particularly stimulating thoughts he had put down on
> paper, regarding complexity:
>
>  "Complexity refers to differentiation in space and time"
>
> "Two kinds of complexity? As cause and as effect?"
>
> "Complexity = effect    and also   = causal agent"
>
> "Phenotype of compleicy is a duality between objective and subjective"
>
> "How complex? is How much causality goes through this subjective
> (creating a
> LOOP)"
>
> "Relative "sizes" of a system's objective and subjective"
>
> "To acquire a function turns general-purpose into special-purpose"
>
> I hope people find these as intriguing as I do!
>
> Judith