(JohnK's post had to be
truncated from the end ' cause Listserve sent back the post as
exceeding the allowed 1000 line length. Sorry, JohnK)
Tim,
now that I lost my virginity in this debate, I
can't resist...:
You must be UNREAL! -
(materially that is)
[Tim's quote]:
(""material reality" refers to what exists in (to use
Rosen's term) the "external world". In this sense, it
is not Newtonian or
Rosennean, it is rather: what is
actually "out there".
)
In the ubiquitous
sense: outside your (my, our) mind/brain. I had to learn from irate
listers on another list that "I" am part of nature and MIR (mind independent
reality) is unreal, because ALL our 'reality' is IN our mind (accepted,
interpreted, learned. whatever).
Those days are
over, when the 'scientist', sitting in his armchair at the fireplace, looks OUT
at the WORLD as a spectator.
(I believe the
discussions on reality, sub/objective, MIR, etc. occurred (on the 4 lists I
debated about them) later than LI was written).
Tim, my post is
not an argument against your post below. rather suporting the position at the
end of it. I just want to reverse the position: that the bulk is the
'stuff' with some afterthoughts. The afterthought is the 'new way' and it is
replacing the old stuff.
So: Get
real!
In my mind
(similar to your ending remark) if I think RR, - the Newtonian blah-blah is
history with all its definitions/errors, it was blah-blah already to Einstein,
who's reductionist physical ideas are also blah-blah to QM - as are the
linear-physical particle-based Quantum Science (tabu-s)
blah-blah to me (now I got ready for the eternal fire) - ever since I
started to be devoted to the complexity-religion's faithful belief that the
world is a process. Matter is a process. You, I, stars, are all
"a" process. No stagnation no equilibrium, just maybe snapshots in a
continuum of changes.
So from arguments
whether function is material, or not, the letter "i" comes to my mind in
homousion vs homoiusion. (11-12th? c.)
Yes, I am
emotional about this. You people waste your knowledge and capable minds when not
sit back from time to time, take a deep breath and ask "what am I discussing
really?"
I like
argumentation, discussions, like to participate, but here we reached a point of
essence: do we want to serve - further - the new worldview, or are we churning
out obsolete logical wisdom?
Sorry for the
outburst, I may be totally wrong and only jeleous for your dexterity in using
Rosen's theories.
Apologies
John
M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 11:13
PM
Subject: Re: Function and functional
organization
John,
Geez, there may
actually be some hope yet. :) I'll try to be brief, since your mentioned
your time is limited.
We were each
apparently using "material" in very different senses that led to
some differences.
To me, "material
reality" refers to what exists in (to use Rosen's term) the "external
world". In this sense, it is not Newtonian or Rosennean, it is rather:
what is actually "out there". This material reality is what we attempt to
learn about via modeling relations (and can learn about only via modeling
relations).
In this sense, since "material" refers to what exists in
the external world, and "material reality" encompasses all that exists in the
external world, then to use a term like "non-material" is to propose something
beyond that which exists in the external world. The latter is not your
claim, I believe. (Although it is what I had previously been thinking you
might have been proposing.)
I believe Rosen uses the term "material reality" in the
same sense as I (or, more correctly, I am using it in the sense I perceive him
to use it), and that quotes from LI p. 119 is an instance of the use of
that meaning of "material reality".
If I understand
you correctly, when you say "material in the Newtonian sense", 'material'
refers to "things" such as atoms, molecules, toasters and planets - all the
"objects" which are idealized in Newtonian mechanics as 'particles'
or 'mass points' or so on. These particles are then pushed around the universe
by Newtonian forces in accordance with Newtonian laws.
In this sense of
"material", the term "non-material" may have many possible meanings
(since the term only tells us what it is not, rather than what it is). I
suspect by "non-material" you mean (at the least) something
that can't be represented in Newtonian mechanics as particles or
mass points (or as Newtonian laws, for that matter).
If I understand
this correctly, then I suspect I roughly agree with this statement
from below, and then we are generally in overall agreement, I
think:
This supports both of my main assertions in this discussion, that
functions are not material in the Newtonian sense, and that the relational
theory linking functions to material states is itself general to biology AND
physics, thus giving a new definition to matter as well as
organisms.
My hesitation is
that I am still unclear exactly what "non-material" means to
you, when phrased in terms of what it is, rather than what it is not.
My own view of
'functions' and 'functional organization' is
that they exist in material reality (using "material reality" in my, and
I believe, Rosen's sense) ; that is, they exist in the external
world. We can model them via relational models. And many natural
systems (biological and non-biological) have functional organization(s) and
are thus amenable to relational modeling. Not every natural system has
functional organization, since a natural system can be a simple system (when
defined with the proper set of observables and encodings/decodings), and
simple systems allow no noncomputable models and no functional
descriptions. It is important, though, to distinguish "natural
system" - which is some subjectively selected collection of
observables of material reality that we decide to call a "system"
- from the complete, undifferentiated material reality. Function
and functional organization may be a pervasive quality of material
reality, or it may merely be prevalent; I leave it as an open
question.
Are functions and functional
organization "objects" or "things" in the Newtonian sense? On the face of
it, apparently not. But more importantly, in the enlarged Rosennean view,
I am not certain if that Newtonian question/distinction is even relevant
or meaningful. Because: 1) for me that is a question that
arises from the very feebleness of
the Newtonian paradigm, and 2) when the Rosennean paradigm is
restricted to the Newtonian subset of it - where the question of
thing/non-thing necessarily arises because of the restrictions in
the formalism - functions and functional organization disappear from the
formalism (that is, they cannot exist within that Newtonian subset)
anyway. So, I personally do not worry much whether functions and
functional organization are Newtonian "things" or not. I suspect
the question lacks meaning in the Rosennean paradigm.
Are we getting
close now...at least in terminology?
Regards,
Tim