Re: MR as ontological

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

John,

 

I'm afraid we do have a big difference here. :) To me, to "drop the reality claim on both sides, and treat both as alternative approximations to reality", is to cease to do science and instead to do art (or something akin to art), where there are multiple incommensurable representations of reality with no schema binding them together. In such a case, we are no longer attempting to resolve the incommensurability between the logical corollaries of each view, we are ignoring them.

 

To me, science is as it's root ("scire"="to know") suggests: it is precisely about attempting to know how the world works. It is the business of making claims about the world. And it rests, as Rosen cites as 'Natural Law', upon the assertions that 1) the world is not whimsical or arbitrary - there are relations among phenomena; and 2) that these relations are detectable and can be cognized by us. Without both of these, science itself is not feasible. Further, these imply that there is a schema in the world to be detected and cognized.

 

Whether the Rosennean paradigm will by supplanted or subsumed by another paradigm at some future time certainly remains to be seen. To the extent to which it does not rely upon any particular formalism beyond the formalism known as the Modeling Relation, and to the extent that the realm of complexity which it addresses is open-ended, and to the extent to which it consistently subsumes Newtonian, Einsteinian and QM paradigms, I find the Rosennean paradigm a sound basis for contemporary science.

 

Regards,

Tim

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:***On Behalf Of John Kineman
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 8:13 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: MR as ontological

Hi Tim,

I concur with your analysis almost 100% (well said, too). The small caveat I would hold is perhaps a subtlety that shouldn't be allowed to differentiate our perspectives. I'll identify it, hopefully in terms that won't ignite disagreement, but even if it does, I would consider it a small matter that may come out in the wash.

I can reference this to your statement:

A large part of what Rosen
demonstrates in Life Itself is that the Newtonian view does indeed make
strong claims about reality. 

Yes indeed. I agree entirely. I want to be clear about that first.

Second, let's also be clear that it is the claim of reality that is the problem here, not shall we say, the "Newtonian approximation" as such. Rosen also makes a point of that.

If, then, one insists on discussing reality, I would call any such idea a relative reality concept, with the Rosenean view being a (perhaps not the only) larger model of reality than Newton's.


Tim Gwinn wrote:

So I feel that one must choose their paradigm (Rosennean, Newtonian, or some
other) and adhere to it, otherwise one is inviting deep inconsistencies.
  

This would be the case for paradigms that are "incommensurable." If the reality claim is retained, they are incommensurable as you say. My recommendation is to drop the reality claim on both sides, and treat both as alternative approximations to reality. Then the issues is what are they good for describing that we are interested in? I don't know how Rosen would feel about calling his view "real" or "just a model" but I think it would be consistent with his own views to call it "just a model" even though all who see his vision (myself included) have the feeling that we just got closer to reality by at least one big step.

What I propose in addition is that Newtonian mechanics can be shown to be a subset of the Rosenean view. In fact, he already demonstrated that. Hence, without the reality claim, there is no conflict.

The remaining problem is certainly the stature that mechanistic thinking has achieved in everyone's psyche, which will be translated as a conflict. But while it may seem appropriate to first break that down so that a broader view can have a chance at similar stature (the "new science"), I doubt that will work as hoped, or when hoped. I am lecturing myself here, because I often lapse into imagining that a living reality can supplant everyone's notion of a physical one, forgetting the extent to which our egoic nature depends on this separation. It is better, I think, to focus on the nested compatibility of these paradigms, so as not to be pitted in competition with Godzilla, Golliath together, and the tidal forces of many universes together.

Hence, we would be in complete agreement that, as you say:

One can certainly do Newtonian physics ..., as
long as we realize that those Newtonian models represent only a very small
amount of physics, and that the Newtonian formalism and its corollaries is
invalid as a universal paradigm.

  

The only caveat, then, is that those doing Newtonian physics may realize they exist

within the Rosennean paradigm

or they may not. The engineer designing a new car can think mechanistically without running into much of a problem; keeping functional complexity a hidden aspect of the job that surfaces in design, operation & maintenance (preventing all those processes that wear and convert the mechanism back to elements or give it a different function), marketing, social norms, professional training, etc. with the usual compartmentalization of those aspects that in the larger reality exist in an evolutionary relationship with the design. Detailing the compartments in this example is meant to clarify both the larger complexity, and also the practical / social need to break it down into compartments. There would be similar analogies with physiology, cognition, .. anything engagine living process.

Yet, despite these social needs, we are perhaps all saying that the life scientist of tomorrow, due to accelerating science and human impact on nature, can no longer afford to be this un-aware, i.e., needs to be more aware of the larger system. In this, the Rosennean view should be tremendously helpful even in fields that are not desperate for it. There is no incompatibility in this unless one is small-minded about there being "nothing but" my model in nature (which 80% of the scientific world tends to be, but I"m speaking philosophically, and most of them have some sense that they do this).


Are we closer, or have I made it worse??

-jjk