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Sorry, Tim and JohnK,
I stayed out so far of the endless
back-and-forth over the past weeks but now I have a remark:
Tim, you emphasize material reality, in your
bold text.
John, you emphasize material vs. nonmaterial
.
I formulated earlier the weak point of the
"Aris-total" (more than the sum of its parts) as the imperfection in his
(timely) views regarding a total as the sum of the material parts ONLY. Omitting
functions and qualia of the assemblage, connections and influences. The
'more'.
Since then somebody suggested a word we should
not forget: I think it is "complexity", and Judith may second my notion <G>
It is remarkable how you go into the fine
details of ideas, but beware of falling into a highly reductionistic view about
dissecting things into arbitrary models without combining and replenishing them
.
Besides "material reality" is what we think so.
Models and simulacra. There is a danger to draw conclusions from intermediate
arguments.
Just a caveat, I like to read your
wisdom.
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 4:02
PM
Subject: Re: Function and functional
organization
John,
You omitted, and
did not respond to, the last quote I gave from Rosen. Here it is
again, LI
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." [bold
added]
I do not see how you can persist in characterizing
function as "non-material" in light of this quote.
I would suggest that you are making a serious mistake in
the line of reasoning below:
[TG]If we isolate the component, and
consider it as a thing in itself, [JJK]i.e., look only at its material, Newtonian part - a
traditional "thing" or material object
[TG]it loses its
function. [JJK]Function is therefore more than the Newtonian,
material thing, and thus it msut be
non-material.
I would suggest
that you are arguing this from a Newtonian-type paradigm, where (roughly)
'Newtonian = all material things', and thus, 'non-Newtonian = non-material'. A
notable point of Rosen's overall arguments was that 'Newtonian = all material
things' is false. In the Newtonian view of the material world, functions and
context-dependence are disallowed. In the Rosennean view of the material
world, functions and context-dependence are part of the material world
and, so too, they should be part of the enlarged physics that
describes that material world. This is why there is nothing unphysical about
the relational strategy. Thus, as the quote at top indicates, there
is no need to posit that function is "non-material". Instead, functions
are "as much a part of material reality" as any other material thing.
Regards,
Tim
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