(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