Hi John,
I think
I now see perhaps the root of some differences in the following (from below):
------------
This surprises and worries me. Is
it not accepted that Rosen discussed entailment between natural and formal
systems?? I suppose if a strictly epistemological view were taken, that
might not be obvious. But in that case, one would be talking only about
the philosophy of science, not anything we would otherwise associate with
nature. Is that your perspective???
------------
The encoding/decodings
between systems in an MR are not entailments. In Life Itself (p. 52), he
refers to them as "dictionaries", where "encoding" is short for "encoding
dictionary, and "decoding" is short for "decoding dictionary".
More directly,
from Essays, p. 159 [while describing the pieces of an MR]:
"The crucial
ingredients are the arrows 2 and 4, which I call encoding and decoding,
respectively.....They do not fit entirely inside either the object system
or the model; they do not represent entailments, nor are they themselves
entailed. They manifest what Einstein...once called "free creations
of the mind", on which he believed science depends....The only condition
on them is that they bring the two entailment structures into congruence
- that is, that they satisfy the commutativity condition...." [bold added]
So, these
dictionaries arise from the mind of the person creating the MR, but are
not entailments of, or entailed within, the MR. So, an MR requires [(object
system) + (formal system) + (modeler-with-mind)]. When you gave the example
of the scientist engaged in an MR with some system, and suggested that the
whole (scientist + object-system) could be considered a natural system, I
agreed that it could. But that new system is now a much bigger chunk of
the world than just the MR that was within the original scenario: it includes
the entire mind of the scientist. Without that mind to impute those "free
creations", there is no MR.
Below,
where you use realizations as examples of entailment between F and N systems,
I do not think these demonstrate entailment beween F and N in the MR itself,
but rather entailments in an application of an MR to a process called "realization".
Regards,
Tim
Tim,
I may not be using the right terms re: Rosen - been a while so I need
to refresh, but, in plain language:
====
Well,
there are two types of entailments : 1) causal and 2) inferential.
Separately,
there is the notion of functional organization. Complex systems and
machines (but not mechanisms) are systems which admit relational (functional)
descriptions. Functional units (components) are also context-dependant:
they acquire their properties based on the system to which they
currently belong.
But
I am still not sure what "functional entailment" means.
====
When taken ontologically, as a description of a natural system itself,
the "encoding" and "decoding" arrows must also be taken as system entailments
(causal mappings), between the natural and formal system. A simple example
is an engineer designing and testing a widget. The encoding and decoding
cycle represents an iterative design cycle. Part of this cycle is Rosen's
process of "realization," i.e., when a a formal system is realized by
a natural one. Since the relationship is also referred to as functional,
i.e., functioins exist in the formal system component, I referred to formal/functioinal
entailment [of the natural system].
====
Again,
I am unsure what "entailment with functions" means. In any case, there
is no reversion to a mechanical view. See further below.
====
Am I stating it incorrectly??? It means a causal mapping between a function
and a natural system that realizes that function. For example, lets model
the relationship between my own mind and my body using a modeling relation.
The function "eat lunch" maps into realized actions that correspond with
eating lunch. That's a decoding relation. I analyze the experience and
change my concept of it. That's encoding. It is ontological because it
is a description of what goes on causally within the whole natural system.
Thus one can draw a picture of a Rosen MR diagram inside the natural system
box of a similar diagram to represent this situation. In such a diagram,
the larger FS box now represents our conversation where I have described
it. So we are modeling the modeling process.
====
What
I meant, and stated poorly, was that the system which has this
emergent property of consciousness is not mechanistic. It is a complex
system and thus not amenable to reductionism. (see further
below)
====
Agreed. no problem here.
====
From
a Rosennean perspective, the reductionistic principle is nullified,
and so there is no "all the way down".
Reduction as a general process is never nullified except in complete absence
of thought. For example, we are reducing to word-symbols and they to prior
experiences. Physical/material reduction is eliminated, yes. "All the
way down" means in successive MRs of MRs. Rosen indicated this possibility
of modeling models. I understand that we might not want to call that a
reduction to avoid confusion with traditional reduction, but nevertheless
it is a reduction when considered ontologically. If the MR is applied
only epistemologically, than it says nothing about complexity, only how
to detect it in the first stage of reduction (the epistemological model
itself).
"Lower"
levels of reality do not universally (or generally) determine or entail
"higher" levels of reality, or vice versa. The 'higher'/'lower'/'up'/'down'
terminology is just an artefact of the Newtonian paradigm.
I certainly would not argue with anyone who wanted to define it thus for
their own purposes, but as a general statement one is certainly also free
to apply these terms to any view or theory construction. Newtonian views
certainly use hierarchical concepts, but so did Rosen. Rosen discussed
"larger" and "smaller" systems. If the word "larger" is preferred to "higher,"
that's equivalent for me, so then no objection. Then "smaller" is "lower."
Just semantics.
====
"Reductionism",
in Rosennean terminology, implies Rosen's definition of 'mechanism':
a system is amenable to reductionism IFF it is a Rosennean mechanism.
Complex systems, on the other hand, are not amenable to reductionism.
====
Yes, "reductionism" refers to a historical philosophy (the "ism") that
was indeed Newtonian and mechanistic. That does not preclude other forms
of reduction on a different basis, but they are not well-established as
"isms" and would have to claim another terms since this was already used
for the Newtonian program. I admit the double usage is confusing, but
it is an English language problem.
Also, the "smaller
pieces" in this case are not parts, they are wholes themselves - fully
entailed natural systems in Rosen's terms. So it is a very non-mechanical
reduction. Mechanism separates the formal and material entailments.
====
I do not know what
you mean by "fully entailed natural systems". Are you saying they
are complex?
Yes, absolutely. The entailments make them complex.
I am
not familiar with the terms "formal and material entailments". Are
you referring to Aristotelian formal cause and material cause?
====
I argued elsewhere that all thinking involves some kind of reduction,
it is reduction to what that is the concern.
Thus, to me, panpsychism (for lack of a better
word) seems to me quite mechanistic, in that it proposes that these
properties of life and consciousness exist not by virtue of being emergent
properties of a complex system organization, but by virtue of being
properties of all the atoms/etc. that make up an organism, which combine to
form a sum total of that property for the organism.
======
Again, I agree it is a reduction, which no theory can escape, but
it is not mechanical because the MR does not commute
====
What
is this MR that you are referring to? What are the two systems in
the MR? Why does it not commute?
====
You were discussing panpsychism, which presumably refers to there being
a psyche associated with all natural systems. So, any MR would qualify
because the NS box would itself be representable by an MR. Below I show
a "larger" system and the "smaller" system in the larger system NS box..
In this diagram the larger system commutation properties can indicate
that the FS is complex (by impossibility of commutation, not attributable
to error). The smaller system diagram is an explanation of why that happens,
i.e., it is internally entailed with an FS.
------------------>
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------
-------->
---------- -------------
NS FS
FS
---------- -------------
<---------
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
<--------------------
=====
I
am not sure, but I think I have a rough idea of what you are proposing.
Basically, that 1) all reality is complex in the Rosennean sense by
virtue of some kind of ontological MR
yes
(psyche?)
arbitrary term along with many others, but yes
that
is part of each piece of fundamental reality,
any natural system - the only fundamental reality proposed (which is a
theory-relative reality) is the MR itself.
and
2) any complex systems (including living organisms) admits
reduction to fundamental (perhaps quantum?) particles.
No. That is physical reduction to a Newtonian concept, "particles." The
existence of particle-wave dualilty - the strange combination, would be
explainable as a Rosen MR, out of which one (optionally) could view particles
if one establishes a mechanistic FS, i.e., if one measures a state.
If
so, this would seem to fall outside/beyond the Rosennean paradigm
of "complex". Complex systems do not admit reduction. This is an oft repeated
theme of Rosen.
No, I do not propose that it is outside the Rosen paradigm, or I wouldn't
be on this list.
Perhaps
you are reaching toward that next paradigm......
Perhaps somewhat, in taking the literal extension of Rosen's ideas to
their logical implication. But I strongly feel that I would be doing Rosen
a disservice to not credit him with this insight as well as the foundation
for it. It is well known that even Einstein did not see the full extension
of his theory, and did not accept the obvious conclusion when it was presented
to him. But in this case, I find ample evidence in Rosen's writings to
indicate that he did see this ontological view, but did not elaborate
on it. Otherwise he would not have made such grave comments about applications
of his theories to creating cybernetic life and the possible misuse by
humanity, reminiscient of the Manhatten project. You don't get that kind
of gravity from just a new model of the scientific process, unless it
has ontological implications for the design of systems. And you don't
get that if you can't state what the ontology is all about so that a cybernetic
project can be accomplished.
=
Again, I am not understanding some terminology. What do you mean by "formal
entailments"?
=====
L
This surprises and worries me. Is it not accepted that Rosen discussed
entailment between natural and formal systems?? I suppose if a strictly
epistemological view were taken, that might not be obvious. But in that
case, one would be talking only about the philosophy of science, not anything
we would otherwise associate with nature. Is that your perspective???
Cheers,
John Kineman