Re: [life] MR as ontological; 3 kinds of life

["John Kineman" <***>]

Trying to send again, had to split into two parts due to length. Sorry:

PART A

Tim and list,
 
 We certainly have different perspectives - that is to be expected and hopefully
enjoyed to mutual benefit, since we each have investigated Rosen's works for
different reasons and purposes. We thus have learned different things from
it. As to different interpretation, per se, I would say it is too early to
tell, especially from email chat. The interpretations probably need to be
established in the reviewed literature, which I am now only beginning to
participate in. There is much more scholarship that must go into these very
fundamental questions; by all involved. Also, I think we have to look at
the context of statements and a number of instances where RR refers to the
same issue directly to interpret them correctly. 
 
 The dialogue will not end, but my responses must end here for a while, because
of other pressing duties. I try my best to clarify my respone to Tim's comments
and challenges in the replies below:
 
 Tim Gwinn wrote:

 

It is not a matter of evidence, it is a matter of the criteria Rosen himself used.

 Sorry, I did not mean scientific evidence, I meant such criteria as evidenced
in Rosen's writings, as you responded with.

The criteria Rosen gives for the behavioral homologies are, as I quoted, "between the behaviors exhibited by organisms, homologies which are absent in non-living systems." [AS p. 3] So, when Rosen talks about living systems, he is talking specifically about organisms.

The meaning here is to give a typological distinction - to identify the basic distinction of types; not to address their generality. It should not be taken out of context. We need to look where RR is addressing the question of generality of the MR. In this quote he was giving an introduction to his interest in the subject and its importance to defining the discipline of biology (see the section referenced). "Homologies" refers to nothing more than similarities among living forms (organisms) which distinguish what the field of biology studies from physical systems (which I think we agree are apparent in nature and behaviorally different). That does not speak to the generality of his resulting theory, which may in fact explain this obvious difference (as I believe it does). It is later that he says biology can inform physics (I won't search the exact reference unless its in doubt); but here he is talking about defining the discipline according to a new, rigorous theory. All who do this hope their theory may turn out to be a general one, as that would be the mark of real success. I think many later statements, made in the context of discussing such generality, point to just that result. Also, it is considered good science, as well as good manners, not to begin by presuming generality, but to discover it.

 

Yes, 3.3 is "Encoding of Physical Systems". This section is about the general modelling of natural systems - representing natural systems in formal models.  What does this have to do with the scope of specific behavioral homologies of "living systems"?

 Well, I think it directly supports what I have been saying. Look at the
bottom of pg. 167. He writes: [my comments in brackets]
 
 "Third, the idea that system laws are invariant to the observer refers only
to the case in which the observers are basically measuring the same set of
observables...But we have seen that different encodings of the same [physical]
system may involve unlinked observables...In that case we cannot expect these
encodings to be related by any kind of transformation; they are fundamentally
irreducible one to the other.  We have already alluded to this possibiity
in Chapter 3.2 above, and we suggested that it plays the essential role in
our perception of complexity of natural systems [clearly including physical
systems in this context]...Indeed, as we shall see, there is a sense in which
biology is possible only because there exist intrinsically inequivalent observers,
whose encodings cannot be transformed into one another. Nevertheless, within
their sphere of applicability, symmetry and invariance arguments are of fundamental
importance; they may roughly be regarded as expressing a sense in which different
observers are models of each other."
 
 "Observers" are defined elsewhere as equivalent to physical interaction,
at the root of percepts. So, he is saying that biology is fundamentally based
on complexity in all of nature, including physical nature. So what is being
identified as unique in biological behavior (the homologies) has this general
complexity at its root, which also appears in physical systems as exceptions
to the mechanical assumption.

 

 
I think you are arguing to limit the theory to biology, but for what purpose I don't know. Many aspects of it have general applicability.
 

 

Limit the theory? Your original remark to which I replied was:

 

> Yes. It seems consistent to begin with the "homology" of behaviors. In

> plain English, these systems behave similarly, and so we look first for

> a common way to identify them (the MR), and then a common explanation

> (possibly an MR!). The homology extends to quantum systems, social

> systems, organisms, ecosystems, and psycho-biological systems.

 

 I don't get your point. In the quote I argued that the theory extends generally
- hence the theory should not be limited to its origins where it was originally
developed to explain organisms. I understand your remarks to say it applies
only to organisms. Did I misunderstand?
 
 Perhaps my last sentence in the above should have read: "The homology [then]
extends.....

 

As I said above, you are free to discover homologies between all those broader classes of systems. They will not, however, be same homologies to which Rosen refers to in his living/non-living distinction.

 OK, I'll buy that. The similarities among organisms will still be somewhat
different than those among ecosystems and among social systems taken as distinct
cases. I've been more concerned with the fundamental and critically necessary
ingredient that establishes a basic dichotomy between living and non. That
seems to be R-complexity. So while varioius kinds of living system may differ
in some character from the set called organisms, they are all quite distinct
from physical mechanisms, and a strong similarily also exists with quantum
systems. All this admits to is that there may be more in any of these distinguished
systems than this one factor, although it is this factor, R-complexity, thats
seems general to all. Does that clarify (despite the fact that we disagree
on this point)?.

 

It sounded like you were attempting to extend a definition of "living" to one that exceeds the one Rosen uses where he equates "living state" with "organisms". One which Judith has, I believe, reiterated several times.

 "Life" and "living" are still different phrases than "living state" or "living
form." There is ample evidence in his writing that complexity, life, and organism
remain potentially distinct, even if the distinctions are not rigorously defined.
I see less distinction between complexity and life-principle; you see less
distinction between life and organism; it seems from the writings that RR
held out the possible distinction of all three, but also provided ample argument
for their relatedness.

Again, in that same quote: "I am persuaded that our recognition of the living state rests on the perception of homologies between the behaviors exhibited by organisms".  There is no mention or insinuation of the application of "living state" other than specifically to organisms.

 

 Again, be cognizant of the context of the paragraph, which was about the
origins of his thinking and career interest, not about any conclusions on
generality of the resulting theory, which are discussed later. Also, "living
state" is closer to the idea of realized life form than it is to fundamental
principle, the former being the aim of his work (I agree), the later emerging
from it, as one would hope to occur in really good science, which is not supposed
to begin from general principles, but is supposed to infer them from careful
study of a phenomena. Rosen seemed keenly aware of scientific method and
particularly cognizant of any criticism that might ensue were one to begin
with a sweeping conclusion. Nevertheless, once having done a very methodical
treatment of the subject, he then wrote extensively about the generality
of his conclusions. This is the proper sequence.

Further, from the last page of Life Itself (p. 280): "But complexity, though I suggest it is the habitat of life, is not life itself. Something else is needed to characterize what is alive from what is complex. Rashesky provided this too, in his idea that biology was relational, and that relation meant (as we stated it) throwing away the physics and keeping the organization.....Organization in its turn inherently involves functions and their interrelations; the abandonment of fractionability, however, means there is no kind of 1 to 1 relationship between such relational functional organizations and the structures which realize them. These are the basic differences between organisms and mechanisms or machines."

 This is very important and relevant, I agree. Unfortunately he did not (or
could not) say what that "something else" is. We can only speculate if he
had any idea in mind, or develop our own ideas.
 
 My own discussion of "life principle" as equivalent to complexity is an
approximation, I admit, or generalization if you prefer. It might even be
overly populist. I gave my reasons for that earlier but in addition I see
it as the honest level of generality of the meta-theory or general view developed
in this work with regard to the biggest hurtle in its understanding and adoption.
That is different from the precise workings of operational theory based on
the same view, which will have many more distinctions and detailed questions
to deal with. The implied or emergent world-view represents the most important
hurtle to overcome as a society (not just a scientific society). At the theoretical
level, however, further distinctions and definitions of precise theory elements
(terms, e.g., complex, living-state, etc.) will be important but will not
alter the general view within which these terms are being defined. That is
the relationship between world views (meta-theories) and theories. The main
point of the view itself will remain that something very different than our
traditional view of nature, which is mechanistic, is in fact more likely to
be the case, and that different attribute is very strongly associated with
life itself. My arguments are to emphasize the profundity of this conclusion
that can be made at this stage, as a result of RR's work (and others) - that
the foundation on which we must consider nature, and on which we must consider
it to rest, is categorically MORE like life than it is like mechanism; so
much so that there is no retreat to the former view.
 

---------------- end Part A, see next post for remainder