Re: [life] MR as ontological; 3 kinds of life

["John Kineman" <***>]

I had to divide this into part A and B because of length.

PART A

Tim and list,

We may indeed have different perspectives - that is to be expected and
hopefully enjoyed to mutual benefit, since we each have investigated
Rosen's works for different reasons and purposes. We thus have learned
different things from it. As to different interpretation, per se, I would
say it is too early to tell, especially from email chat. The
interpretations probably need to be established in the reviewed literature,
which I am now only beginning to participate in. There is much more
scholarship that must go into these very fundamental questions; by all
involved. Also, I think we have to look at the context of statements and a
number of instances where RR refers to the same issue directly to interpret
them correctly.

The dialogue will not end, but my responses must end here for a while,
because of other pressing duties. I try my best to clarify my respone to
Tim's comments and challenges in the replies below:

Tim Gwinn wrote:
>>
>>It is not a matter of evidence, it is a matter of the criteria Rosen
>>himself used.
Sorry, I did not mean scientific evidence, I meant such criteria as
evidenced in Rosen's writings, as you responded with.

>>The criteria Rosen gives for the behavioral homologies are, as I quoted,
>>"between the behaviors exhibited by organisms, homologies which are
>>absent in non-living systems." [AS p. 3] So, when Rosen talks about
>>living systems, he is talking specifically about organisms.
The meaning here is to give a typological distinction - to identify the
basic distinction of types; not to address their generality. It should not
be taken out of context. We need to look where RR is addressing the
question of generality of the MR. In this quote he was giving an
introduction to his interest in the subject and its importance to defining
the discipline of biology (see the section referenced). "Homologies" refers
to nothing more than similarities among living forms (organisms) which
distinguish what the field of biology studies from physical systems (which
I think we agree are apparent in nature and behaviorally different). That
does not speak to the generality of his resulting theory, which may in fact
explain this obvious difference (as I believe it does). It is later that he
says biology can inform physics (I won't search the exact reference unless
its in doubt); but here he is talking about defining the discipline
according to a new, rigorous theory. All who do this hope their theory may
turn out to be a general one, as that would be the mark of real success. I
think many later statements, made in the context of discussing such
generality, point to just that result. Also, it is considered good science,
as well as good manners, not to begin by presuming generality, but to
discover it.
>>
>>Yes, 3.3 is "Encoding of Physical Systems". This section is about the
>>general modelling of natural systems - representing natural systems in
>>formal models.  What does this have to do with the scope of specific
>>behavioral homologies of "living systems"?
Well, I think it directly supports what I have been saying. Look at the
bottom of pg. 167. He writes: [my comments in brackets]

"Third, the idea that system laws are invariant to the observer refers only
to the case in which the observers are basically measuring the same set of
observables...But we have seen that different encodings of the same
[physical] system may involve unlinked observables...In that case we cannot
expect these encodings to be related by any kind of transformation; they
are fundamentally irreducible one to the other.  We have already alluded to
this possibiity in Chapter 3.2 above, and we suggested that it plays the
essential role in our perception of complexity of natural systems [clearly
including physical systems in this context]...Indeed, as we shall see,
there is a sense in which biology is possible only because there exist
intrinsically inequivalent observers, whose encodings cannot be transformed
into one another. Nevertheless, within their sphere of applicability,
symmetry and invariance arguments are of fundamental importance; they may
roughly be regarded as expressing a sense in which different observers are
models of each other."

"Observers" are defined elsewhere as equivalent to physical interaction, at
the root of percepts. So, he is saying that biology is fundamentally based
on complexity in all of nature, including physical nature. So what is being
identified as unique in biological behavior (the homologies) has this
general complexity at its root, which also appears in physical systems as
exceptions to the mechanical assumption.

>>
>>
>>I think you are arguing to limit the theory to biology, but for what
>>purpose I don't know. Many aspects of it have general applicability.
>>
>>
>>Limit the theory? Your original remark to which I replied was:
>>
> > Yes. It seems consistent to begin with the "homology" of behaviors. In
> > plain English, these systems behave similarly, and so we look first for
> > a common way to identify them (the MR), and then a common explanation
> > (possibly an MR!). The homology extends to quantum systems, social
> > systems, organisms, ecosystems, and psycho-biological systems.
>
I don't get your point. In the quote I argued that the theory extends
generally - hence the theory should not be limited to its origins where it
was originally developed to explain organisms. I understand your remarks to
say it applies only to organisms. Did I misunderstand?

Perhaps my last sentence in the above should have read: "The homology
[then] extends.....
>>
>>As I said above, you are free to discover homologies between all those
>>broader classes of systems. They will not, however, be same homologies to
>>which Rosen refers to in his living/non-living distinction.
OK, I'll buy that. The similarities among organisms will still be somewhat
different than those among ecosystems and among social systems taken as
distinct cases. I've been more concerned with the fundamental and
critically necessary ingredient that establishes a basic dichotomy between
living and non. That seems to be R-complexity. So while varioius kinds of
living system may differ in some character from the set called organisms,
they are all quite distinct from physical mechanisms, and a strong
similarily also exists with quantum systems. All this admits to is that
there may be more in any of these distinguished systems than this one
factor, although it is this factor, R-complexity, thats seems general to
all. Does that clarify (despite the fact that we disagree on this point)?.
>>
>>It sounded like you were attempting to extend a definition of "living" to
>>one that exceeds the one Rosen uses where he equates "living state" with
>>"organisms". One which Judith has, I believe, reiterated several times.
"Life" and "living" are still different phrases than "living state" or
"living form." There is ample evidence in his writing that complexity,
life, and organism remain potentially distinct, even if the distinctions
are not rigorously defined. I see less distinction between complexity and
life-principle; you see less distinction between life and organism; it
seems from the writings that RR held out the possible distinction of all
three, but also provided ample argument for their relatedness.
>>Again, in that same quote: "I am persuaded that our recognition of the
>>living state rests on the perception of homologies between the behaviors
>>exhibited by organisms".  There is no mention or insinuation of the
>>application of "living state" other than specifically to organisms.
>>
Again, be cognizant of the context of the paragraph, which was about the
origins of his thinking and career interest, not about any conclusions on
generality of the resulting theory, which are discussed later. Also,
"living state" is closer to the idea of realized life form than it is to
fundamental principle, the former being the aim of his work (I agree), the
later emerging from it, as one would hope to occur in really good science,
which is not supposed to begin from general principles, but is supposed to
infer them from careful study of a phenomena. Rosen seemed keenly aware of
scientific method and particularly cognizant of any criticism that might
ensue were one to begin with a sweeping conclusion. Nevertheless, once
having done a very methodical treatment of the subject, he then wrote
extensively about the generality of his conclusions. This is the proper
sequence.
>>Further, from the last page of Life Itself (p. 280): "But complexity,
>>though I suggest it is the habitat of life, is not life itself. Something
>>else is needed to characterize what is alive from what is complex.
>>Rashesky provided this too, in his idea that biology was relational, and
>>that relation meant (as we stated it) throwing away the physics and
>>keeping the organization.....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."
This is very important and relevant, I agree. Unfortunately he did not (or
could not) say what that "something else" is. We can only speculate if he
had any idea in mind, or develop our own ideas.

My own discussion of "life principle" as equivalent to complexity is an
approximation, I admit, or generalization if you prefer. It might even be
overly populist. I gave my reasons for that earlier but in addition I see
it as the honest level of generality of the meta-theory or general view
developed in this work with regard to the biggest hurtle in its
understanding and adoption. That is different from the precise workings of
operational theory based on the same view, which will have many more
distinctions and detailed questions to deal with. The implied or emergent
world-view represents the most important hurtle to overcome as a society
(not just a scientific society). At the theoretical level, however, further
distinctions and definitions of precise theory elements (terms, e.g.,
complex, living-state, etc.) will be important but will not alter the
general view within which these terms are being defined. That is the
relationship between world views (meta-theories) and theories. The main
point of the view itself will remain that something very different than our
traditional view of nature, which is mechanistic, is in fact more likely to
be the case, and that different attribute is very strongly associated with
life itself. My arguments are to emphasize the profundity of this
conclusion that can be made at this stage, as a result of RR's work (and
others) - that the foundation on which we must consider nature, and on
which we must consider it to rest, is categorically MORE like life than it
is like mechanism; so much so that there is no retreat to the former view.

---------- End Part A, see Part B in next post

J.Kineman