Re: Greetings

["John Kineman" <***>]

Tim et al.,

Thanks for reading so thoroughly! I'll try to respond, with the caveat
that I don't want you to form too early an opinion about the ontological
question. It is something I expect will require considerable discussion
and may not have an easy answer.

By the way, I assume by MR you mean modeling relation, not
metabolism-repair, which perhaps can be designated as M-R


Tim Gwinn wrote:

>Hi John,
>
>Welcome to the group!  Thanks for including your bio and interests regarding
>Rosen and his ideas.
>
>Your remarks bring up some points for possible discussion:
>
>1) MR as ontological
>I am unsure about the idea of interpreting the modelling relation
>ontologically (as a "foundational principle"). To me, the modelling relation
>is intrinsically epistemological, especially insofar as the
>encoding/decoding are unentailed within the MR itself and must be imputed to
>the MR from an external source. Rosen refers to this as a "creative act" on
>the part of the person building the MR.
>
Yes indeed.. I think it always remains epistemological in this sense,
but the question is not so much that, as the extent to which
epistemological processes are restricted to humans. It is clear that we
are not the only conscious beings, and the extent and form of awareness
throughout organismic life is unknown. While positivistic arguments have
been used to claim that parsimony precludes assuming anything
affirmatively in that regard, these newer insights into the nature of
modeling relations is a further indication that parsimony could as well
be invoked in the other direction. In one of my interpretations of Rosen
I said it is far easier to explain how physical system are obtained from
a living reality, than to explain how life itself can emerge from a
physical one.

I think this question is implicit in much of Rosen's writings - in how
one would diagram a "larger system," in the notion that life itself is
(ontologically) complex (what makes it so intrinsically, which is not
the same as identifying a knowledge gap in the failure of externally
generated mechanical descriptions.), and certainly the idea that
mechanisms result from a simplification of the modeling relation - i.e.,
that biology, being complex, can inform physics for this reason. If that
is so, it must be at least as fundamental as physics.

Another way to say this is that the modeling relation itself must be a
natural system (you can imagine a MR diagram nesting within the "NS" box
of a larger MR diagram). Mikulecky called this a "muddle" but I don't
think that is true. Even if we consider MR only as a picture of what
scientists do, you have the fact that scientists are organisms, hence
the whole process is obviously involved in a natural system - a human.
Then we must consider if this is general (or else scientists entail some
extra system that isn't part of Rosen's definition of a natural system,
which would seem to miss the whole point).

Typically those discussing these points are willing to go down the road
a little way, which is necessitated by many aspects or RR's work, but
then stop when they see it could lead to ideas that could be called
"vitalistic," where "creative acts" are considered a part of nature, not
just humans. My own view is that this extension is now necessary and in
no way linked to the pre-scientific vitalism that originally gave it a
bad name. While there can be metaphorical comparisons with ancient and
traditional views (a good thing, by the way), Rosen's understanding of
the reason for that similarity demystifies it and makes it studiable.

>Further, the choice of a certain collection of percepts into a system is,
>according to Rosen, an entirely arbitrary choice on our part - one that is
>guided only by our consensus or intuition that those percepts seem to us to
>belong together. I do not see how this can be turned into an ontological
>principle.
>
>
The ontology must be considered when we ask what perception itself is.
Did humans invent it, or did we acquire it through evolution? If the
later, then it has an ontology.

>2) Kay & complexity
>I tried to read up on Kay, but alas, it seems the links from his page
>(http://www.jameskay.ca/) to his papers are down. However, from this page on
>thermodynamics and ecology (http://www.jameskay.ca/about/thermo.html), it
>seems that he is deeply entrenched in the idea of thermodynamics as being
>key to self-organization: "The emergence of self-organizing structures
>provides an avenue for dissipation that otherwise would not exist". The idea
>being that dissipation toward equilibrium is not only inevitable, but that
>self-organizing structures are generated naturally by this dissipative
>tendency towards optimizing the rate of dissipation. At least, that is what
>I gather from it.
>
>But this tendency toward equilibrium is based upon a thermodynamics of
>closed systems as *the* standard, in which equilibrium is an attractor for
>the dynamics of *the* system. The use of the properties of closed systems as
>a paradigm for all systems is, however, a poor one. To quote Rosen: "The
>entropy function, which was a Lyapunov function for the autonomous dynamics
>when the system was closed and isolated, will in general have no special
>relation to the new dynamics [of the opened system], and loses thereby all
>its original theoretical significance." [EL p. 251]
>
>
What Kay does and what he believes may not fully commute. In other
words, his thinking is more complex but he knows what to survive on. He
has been successful in adapting analogies from chaos theory and thermo
to ecosystems, identifying for example the phenomenon on "flips" using
the concept of attractors of various stable states. I spoke with him and
his knowledge of Rosen is limited, yet he is open and interested. The
problem is linking with the "mainstream" so he sticks with the
traditional stuff. We recommended Kay as an advisor to NSF's complexity
program as a means of getting it one step out of a fully deterministic
view. They accepted and Kay has been lecturing NSF staff. At the same
time I recommended to Margaret Leinen (head of NSF complexity program)
that she look into Rosen's ideas as a "next step." She bought a copy of
"Essays..." and read it, but I'm not sure to what avail. Kay is more
careful not to go so far that he loses their trust (a talent I have not
learned).

>There are in nature no ecosystems that are closed thermodynamically and
>therefore, those ecosystems will not have equilibrium as an attractor the
>dynamics within it.
>
Its an interesting point and I'm sure it is technically true of
thermodynamically open systems. But ecosystems are arbitrarily defined,
so one can perhaps define the boundaries in such a way as to focus on
conforming properties. The important question to me seems to be how open
vs. how closed are ecosystems, as variously defined? Not sure it can be
treated in a boolean manner (open OR closed). It is clear that
ecosystems, and certainly many of their components, do exhibit stable
modes and certain kinds of equilibria. They incorporate many physical
mechanisms. While equilibriom theory was clearly over-emphasized in
ecology of the 50's and 60's (or was that a necessary step in its
development?), and now system pattern-process dynamics are the rage,
ecosystems nevertheless have both aspects. Perhaps it is a case, as
Rosen described, where a fundamentally complex system can behave as a
mechanism at times??

> So, the use of entropy (based on closed-system
>thermodynamics) as a causal agent for promoting self-organization within any
>given ecosystem is invalidated.
>
I  tend to agree, but again perhaps not as an absolute. Certainly I
believe that living systems must not be entirely subject to the 2nd law,
otherwise there could be no "creative act." But to the extent that they
involve mechanical sub-systems, 2nd law dyanmics would seem to apply.
Any given example seems to be a mixed bag. Perhaps it is the case that
there are very few examples of a fully realized living system, with no
components whatsoever that behave mechanically (except perhaps for
quantum systems and superconscious Swamis?). It was a point that became
somewhat tiresome in prior discussions, as one group would argue for
complete mechanism and another for complete absence of mechanism,
whereas any casual observer can see both. But your point regards
self-organization. To what extent can that be mechanical and to what
extent not? Does this question translate into this one: To what extent
is a "creative act" needed? If one says that a whirlpool in a bathtub is
an example of self-organization, then there are self-organizing systems
that can be explained mechanically (assuming we ignore the person taking
the bath). But I certainly think more is involved in a living system. My
tendency is to see it as a combination of both mech. and non-mech.
processes.

I am tempted to say that the 2nd law applies to all systems for which
the ontology (origin - agreeing with RR's usage) is not considered part
of the system. So the universe is said to conform to 2nd law entropy
except for the big bang itself. Organisms may be analizable as
dissipative systems conforming to 2nd law thermo, except for their
evolutionary history and present day capabilities to involve "creative
acts." These are both ontologies.  Perhaps the entire mechanistic
paradigm can be said to be built on the separation of an observable
system from its ontology, hence the escape from mechanism would seem to
requiring adding that ontology back in. I hear this loudly when I read
Rosen.

My view is that Rosen-complexity (to distinguish it from all the
varieties) is general, and that it accordingly explains the appearance
of mechanisms, including all "classical" matter and apparently classical
processes. To do that it must be considered ontologically. Having thus
explained the appearance of mechanisms, it does not follow that they
have been eliminated from consideration. There will still be many
questions and situations where a mechanistic answer is adequate and less
confusing, although I fully agree that explaining life, consciousness,
ecosystems, etc. are not such cases, exclusively, but contain many such
cases within the circle of questions that may be asked of them.

> As Rosen says "the problems associated with
>open systems are dynamical problems and not thermodynamics ones." [EL p.
>252]
>
>
>I am interested to hear your comments on these or other topics. Thanks for
>participating. :)
>Regards,
>Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of John
>>Kineman
>>Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 2:21 PM
>>To: ***
>>Subject: Greetings
>>
>>
>>Greetings,
>>
>>I would like to introduce myself to the members of this list, some of
>>whom already know me from previoius discussions. I am an avid follower
>>of Rosen's work and am applying it in the field of ecosystem informatics
>>at NOAA and the University of Colorado. I became aware of Rosen's work
>>in 1998 as I was revising a 1991 paper on the Gaia hypothesis.  I
>>presented that paper at the 1999 annual meeting of the ISSS at Asilomar.
>>It was  titled "Non-mechanical ontology in the explanation of organism
>>and evolution." I had also arranged a panel discussion for that meeting
>>as a SIG sponsored activity, which Dr. Rosen himself, despite his
>>failing health, had agreed to attend. His health gave out that year. Don
>>Mikuleckey agreed to attend the session in his stead, but obviously the
>>event took on a very different character. I regret that I was not
>>fortunate enough to have met Rosen in such a venue.
>>
>>One result of this initial activity was to create a Special Integration
>>Group of the ISSS called "What is Life/Living" at the 1999 meeting. My
>>original idea for the SIG was to focus on Rosen's concepts and to relate
>>them to other ideas. However, the SIG has covered many different ideas
>>and only a few of the participants knew of Rosen. The SIG has now had 5
>>annual meetings and there are about 40 contributed papers on varioius
>>aspects of life. It is not focused specifically on Rosen's work, but I
>>am more convinced than ever that only Rosen's approach can bring harmony
>>to all the diverse approaches and help relate them. We may eventually
>>attempt some kind of synthesis in which I will try to weave the
>>fundamental concepts together. Meanwhile, I participated in the VCU
>>discussions, so many of my comments can be found in that archive, and at
>>PCP-L.
>>
>>Rosen's philosophy and theory (I belive it was both) pervades all of my
>>current work and I plan that it will now be the foundation for
>>completion of a Ph.D. dissertation, that I abandoned 18 years ago when I
>>joined NOAA, partly because I was disappointed in the view of life being
>>presented at the University at the time. Perhaps now I can help change
>>that view. What I have found is that these ideas are appropriate for
>>today's issues regarding ecosystem complexity and management (and of
>>course, much more). I am developing these ideas in the context of my
>>paid work, providing information services to support "Integrated
>>Regional Assessments," such as the Millennium Assessment and a number of
>>regional assessments sponsored by NOAA, called "Regional Integrated
>>Science and Assessment" programs. All of this is still developmental,
>>but I do manage to get funding from time to time, for practical
>>applications. One application I have been developing over the past 4
>>years is a Rosenesque approach to mapping ecosystem functions and
>>ecological potentials. It has yet to be published.
>>
>>In later ISSS papers, I applied my interpretation of Rosen to modify my
>>previous thoughts and create the concept of "autevolution"
>>(self-evolution); a term I havn't seen used and thus tried to define. I
>>then took a wild excursion thinking about cosmology, and I developed a
>>meta-model based on a modeling relation between imaginary and real
>>numbers to describe space-time. This turned out to recapitulate much of
>>E.A. Milne's Kinematic Relativity, which was never fully evaluated as
>>far as I can determine. Some predictions of the model are testable and
>>it continues to intrigue me.
>>
>>A particular feature of my interpretation (which was challenged by
>>Mikuleckey) was to expand on the idea of embedding modeling relations
>>within modeling relations, thus building a picture of an infinite
>>hierarchy of "larger" and "smaller" systems, as I believe Dr. Rosen saw
>>it and expressed it. This takes the modeling relation out of the
>>epistemological realm and treats it ontologically -- i.e., as a
>>foundational principle in how we might think nature operates. So, a
>>particular result of these explorations was to form the belief that, for
>>the true life scientist, life should not be seen as  "emerging" from a
>>physical reality (that is not the parsimonious view of life), but rather
>>the universe should be seen as fundamentally (ontologically) describable
>>as a living reality based on Rosen's modeling relation, from which
>>physical nature can be extracted, as Rosen described in the definition
>>of a mechanism. This places reality on a perceptual basis, which is then
>>consistent with perrenial philosophies of the East and some newer
>>concepts of reality emerging in the West.
>>
>>These thoughts are now leading me to consider the role of "information"
>>(as a partial label for the formal domain) in nature in more practical
>>modes, particularly in regard to ecosystems, their management, and
>>informations system supporting management and decision making. In this
>>regard I have found the work of James Kay and Robert Ulanowicz extremely
>>interesting. Both are followers of Rosen's ideas.
>>
>>I am very excited to see this list and associated web pages, and the
>>direct participation of the Rosen family. The archive so far is already
>>extremely interesting. I look forward to future discussions.
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>John J. Kineman
>>
>>