Re: Function and functional organization

I broke this out of our previous thread ("[life] MR as ontological; 3 kinds of life").

The topic of function and functional organization that came up in it is a particularly crucial and important one. Some of your remarks appear to miss the meaning of these concepts. I'll include what seem like the relevant pieces of the prior thread and then add comments at the bottom.

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]

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.

Further clarification of my semantics (possible roots of our different views???):
1. "epistemological" does not imply only human science: I assume it refers to knowledge generally but is first known to us as science.
2. "no kind of 1:1 relationship" does not mean "no kind of relationship." In fact it is a "modeling relationship" which does not generally commute in a 1:1 manner.
3. I assume "structural organization" is the realized material aspect organized according to mechanical laws; as distinct from functional organization, which is associated with the formal domain of models, and the abstract domain of encodings and decodings (as we clarified earlier)..

Lets revert to some more basic terms, then look at these combinations. "Function" is clearly "non-material" and "structure" is clearly material. The "organization" can be represented in causal mappings, which are roughly related to modeling relations.

I assume we can interpret "functional organization" to mean "functional organization of components?" I don't think it means "organization of functions" which would just be compounding the idea of function. Given the former, a picture of that phrase could be constructed which is a modeling relation. Functions are what comprise the formal system, which is then realized by a system of components. This is consistent with the quote, where the word "relational" was used as a modifier, to emphasize that this is indeed a relational diagram, or modling relation, as I have described. Finally, the modeling relation, taken as a whole, is not reducible to anything that is strictly mateiral - Rosen's main point.

Continuing, let's do the same with "sturctural organization" [of components] (does RR use this term?). Again we draw a MR of this statement. But in this case "structural organization" which we would think of in terms of a "structural model" refers to something computable - i.e., structure, i.e., a mechanism. So, putting the two together, you have "sturctural organization" referring to the mechanical aspect of the system, also representable by a modeling relation but this time one that commutes computably - i.e., a mechanism..

Thus "functional organization" refers to the complex part of the model in an MR - the part we have inadequate language for since it is not usually discussed in mechanistic science, but in any case is non-computable; whereas "structural organization," if that is used, would refer to the part of a system that can be described mechanically.

Example. The functional organization of a car-driver system would include all kinds of relations with humans, including the manufacturing process, beauty perceived by the owner, transportation uses, etc. The structural organization would refer to the engineering designs, including the prescribed ways that the driver is supposed to interact with it; all of which is computable. Both can be described by modeling relations, the former being complex, the later being simple.

===============================

I am particularly concerned about several of your statements above:

'Function' and 'functional organization' are no less physical than their structural counterparts. They are not "non-material", nor are functions "formal models" or "internal models" or otherwise "comprise the formal system" or modeling relationships. Below are some quotes and comments in this regard.

From Life Itself p. 116:

"...we are comparing two different situations: an unoriginal unperturbed one, and a second one, arising as a perturbation [the perturbation being the the removal of some portion of the system] of the first. The discrepancy between the two systems defines the concept of component; the discrepancy between the behaviors defines the function of the component. ... The characteristic relationships between such constituent components, and between the components and the system as a whole, comprise a new and different approach to science itself, which we may call the relational theory of systems."

"The component may be thought of as a particle of function; it plays the same role in relational modeling that particles play in reductionistic or Newtonian modeling. Just as in the case of particles, components for us will be the basic analytical units into which natural systems are resolved. ...

"...the notion of component is tied to that of function, and this is in turn dependant upon the larger system of which the component is a part. If we isolate the component, and consider it as a thing in itself, it loses its function. In other words, a functional description is contingent and not absolute; to describe a functional unit necessarily involves aspects outside the unit itself.

"This is already an important departure from familiar ideas, which I may restate as follows: a particle, or any unit of structural analysis, does not (indeed, cannot) acquire new properties by being associated with a larger family of such units; on the contrary, the larger family is itself endowed with precisely those attributes that are contributed individually by its members. Thus, a thoroughgoing reductionistic, structural approach to the natural world must deny reality to such concepts as novelty or emergence at any fundamental level. ...

"The situation is quite different with a functional unit or component. As we have seen, such a unit can by its very nature have no completely inherent, invariant description that entails its function; on the contrary, its description changes as the system to which it belongs changes. It can thus acquire new properties from the larger systems with which it is associated."

So, for example, the function "metabolism" is a perfectly legitimate functional description of something that occurs physically in an organism. However, one cannot go into an organism with a scalpel and excise just the function 'metabolism' by cutting out some specific organ or other structural piece(s). Metabolism, as a function, is entirely physical, but, in structural terms, 'metabolism' permeates, and is enmeshed with, structures across the organism to various degrees.

Indeed, as the quote above indicates, a functional unit cannot equate with a structural unit: a functional unit will necessarily have a contingent property (namely, its "function"), while a structural unit cannot have any such contingent properties. Both modes of analysis (functional and structural) are possible, but the analytic units will necessarily be different, and so will the relationships - the organization - between their respective analytic units. This is the sense in which "there is no kind of 1 to 1 relationship between such relational functional organizations and the structures which realize them."

Again, "metabolism" and "spleen" are both completely valid physical references - the former refers to a functional unit, the latter to a structural unit.

As Rosen says on p. 119:

"The radical departure of relational analysis from conventional analysis of material systems should now be evident. However, there is nothing in the relational strategy that is unphysical, in the sense of "ideal" physics. The organization of a natural system (and, in particular, of a biological organism) is at least as much a part of its material reality as the specific particles that constitute it at a given time, perhaps indeed more so. As such, it can be modeled or described, in full accord with Natural Law; the resulting formalisms have at least as much right to be called images of material reality as any reductionistic model based on states and dynamical laws."

I hope this helps clarify the notion of function, functional organization, component, and their relation to structure and structural organization.