Re: [life] MR as ontological; semantic/meaning

["John Kineman" <***>]

Dan,

quickly, yes this makes sense. I may have mis-spoke saying it is in the
formal system domain, as it is properly in the relational domain (domain
of abstraction?) as you say, and as Jim distinguished from other kinds
of system entailments. In the view of nested modeling relationships
(larger models), there is an attractive way to imagine meaning arising.
When one system, representable by an MR, is considered as the natural
system in a larger system MR, this defines a context for the embedded
system, relating the larger formal system with the sub-system. The
larger system modeling relationship (which could be multiple, of course)
could then relate to the concept of meaning, providing a picture where
we can say meaning of what and to what. Then as you say, the semantic
element does not fall within any part of the MR itself, but is in its
hierarchical relationships, which are in the domain of the
encoding/decoding abstractions.

jkineman

Dan Fiscus wrote:

> John,
>
> Again, some great thoughts, comments, process. Thanks. I agree
> on your proposal of working diligently to clarify, extend, apply
> Rosen's work in open and collaborative spirit. And your views/posts
> and dialog with Tim have helped my thinking a lot. Listening in has
> added more "meaning" to these topics for me...
>
> Speaking of this, a quick reply re:
>
> John Kineman wrote:
>
>> Formality includes more than just computability, which was argued
>> effectively with regard to Goedel's incompleteness, etc. If we then look
>> at the reason for this difference, it seems to be attributed to the need
>> for semantic input to the mathematics, i.e., the role of the
>> mathematician in establishing meanings. If that is the basic difference
>> between computable and complex, then it correlates with the picture I
>> have been presenting - that the "something else" in this case is a
>> semantic element, which must inhabit the formal system domain. Thus the
>> nested arrangement I diagrammed captures this difference. However, I
>> need to look more deeply into what constitutes this difference, if there
>> is anything at all of the mechanical domain that can be involved. That
>> would seem to be logically excluded, for the very reason that we are
>> discussing something more than what is precisely mechanical and thus
>> computable.
>
>
> I think the semantic and meaning input comes not from either
> formal or physical/material, but from the interdependence of the
> two. It is like meaning arising, growing, evolving in dialog
> between two participants. Ulanowicz has a paper in press about
> the dialog between the quick (living) and the dead (non-living
> physical). Rashevsky talked about the distinction being between
> topological (or relational in his words) and physical aspects. He
> and Rosen both seem to have tried to make a total separation,
> perhaps only a distinction, and to elevate the relational aspect as
> key, or at least sorely ignored by mechanistic science. But if formal
> (non-physical) and physical/material are entangled, always
> mutually causal and co-evolving, there can be no clean line drawn,
> neither exists alone. Everything has a bit of both aspects. This
> would fit with various views of complementarity, too, I think.
>
> 2 cents,
>
> Dan