Yes, it was the largest system test that I was referring to, but I believe other statements as well (that I will have to research). However your preceding comments and citations are very much to the point, and suggest an incorrect statement that I have been making. I have been saying that "all models are simple," whereas Rosen on many occasions discusses models that may be more than simple, computable models. I need to modify my statements to say "all computable models are simple."It is true that complex system will not have a single "largest model", while a mechanism will. (The latter follows as a corollary of a mechanism having all its models be computable.) So, with a mechanism, there will be some single largest computable model which will commute fully with it. Is this perhaps the distinction to which you were referring?
Not the models existing as distinct entities, the modeling relation representing distinct elements of a way of analyzing nature. As a world-view, it must apply generally. This gets back to the relative realism and provisional instrumentalism. Nothing can be said to be truely distinct in nature itself, if we presume it to be a self-consistent whole; which seems to be the implication and a philosophical starting point for many (and goal of science). If only observers create distinctions, we at least want them to be relevant to as much as possible. So we imagine our distinctions as relating to something "real" but it is a theoretical real.This does not seem to bear on the question of why these models need to exist ontologically as distinct entities.
On this I can also wholeheartedly disagree. Even in the jacket statement in AS it uses the word "contain" in this precise regard: "Presents the first detailed study of this most important class of systems which contain internal predictive models of themselves and/or of their environments and whose predictions are utilized for purposes of present control." How can it be clearer?? With regard to where models realized by organismic structures reside, it is in the organizaton itself of those systems - an abstraction which feeds back (actually forward) to the structrual realization. These are not the human scientific models that are feeding forward to biological structures, but the organism's own models, as clearly stated. I would further suggest that the organization of a system, and hence the organism model, should not be said to be "outside" the system (thus thinking of the organism system in only its structural aspect). They are an indivisible whole. I describe it as a complementarity relationship. This is foundational to his entire theory, which becomes trivial without it.I would disagree wholeheartedly. I do not see where Rosen proposes that the models are a part of the organism. Instead, I think he indicated repeatedly that models are realized in organisms.I also recall no point where he intimated any "nested hierarchies" of larger/smaller systems.
I think this is being overly literal. I meant nothing more than is obvious, for example from the MR diagram itself which distinguishes FS from NS diagramatically, and thereby "proposes" to "consider" models as distinct from their realizations - as an analytical method. I did not mean that he said they are separate in nature, in fact, referring to the above discussion, I have argued that they are intimately involved in the whole organism. Earlier I said the character of the relationship is that of a complementarity.The most immediate relationship is with the fully embodied model, part of the organism, but information also is shared with larger contexts. This is very suitable for ecology. I read him as proposing to consider models separate from material structures, but both are operative in an organism. Additionally, in an organism, there is the ability to respond to the model for control purposes, thus producing a plethora of anticipatory behavior. That, I think, is all Rosen.Again, I disagree. I do not read Rosen as "proposing to consider models separate from material structures". I can recall no wording that speaks directly to anything like that.
Yes, meaning they are distinguished analytically in this view. Perhaps "distinct" is a better word than separate.My own speculation is that the rules governing what makes an organism essentially define an amplification means which capitalizes on anticipatory behevior via evolution and adaptation. It is thus magnifying a property of nature that is apparent in un-structured matter (free particles), but disappears without the organismic way of preserving it.
Instead, the (M,R) model is an epistemological model that is realized or embodied in the internal organization of the organism itself, and notably, this organizational aspect is not identical with the organisms structural organization.
Yes, exactly my view as well.Hmmm, it seems your view is different. You say models are "separate from material structures".
This seems to directly support what I've been saying, that the functional relations are inherent, embodied, inside, contained, etc. in the organism's model of itself and environment , so it is unclear why you think it is a counter-example???. The quote is specific about the nature of the distinction between functional organization (the internal model) and realized structure in a modeling relation, and emphasizes that the two aspects of this relationship are not reducible to each other ("no 1:1 relationship"). Furthermore this non-reducibility (non commutation of this aspect of the MR) is related to their difference from machines. Note that this statement about the criteria for machine does not mention the computability aspect, so my earlier comments on that may be a way to reconcile the two statements, i.e., commutation, or 1:1 relationship, is possible between natural systems, but in a pure picture where one draws an MR between the formal component alone (which is not natural) and a natual system, commpution always implies mechanism. That also is consistent with the largest system description statements. So I don't see any problem here.This is an entirely different claim than Rosen makes (and to which I am making reference above): "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." [LI p. 280]
I would say realized in the one "organic" system, which is more than just material - the whole point being made, right?Rosen is referring to differing organizational aspects - one structural and one functional - both of which are realized in the one material system.
I don't see how to avoid this association, nor any basis for claiming it misconstrues the theory.He is not referring to the structural organization as material, and the functional organization as "non-material". I think this deeply misconstrues Rosen.