Re: Function and functional organization

["John M" <***>]

My dear Tim,

all apologies gracefully accepted (ha ha). (No need for them).

The homo-stuff : look up the medium-size Webster, both -ousion       and -iousion are in. It is medieval Christian stupidity for which they killed each other.

To your "explanatory" formulations: could they be translated into some English-like human language?

And if you are graciously including all the concepts in question into the 'material reality' whether or not ambient mortals could consider it 'matterly' or not, why bother to add the word "material" to it?

(Of course with "reality" I have other problems, on lists of psych-philos-physics people I successfully proved that it is virtual, objective reality is indeed subjective virtuality - 1991-4) since all we (may) know is the interpretation of the mind and we have no way to access 'that' reality which allegedly made the impact on it.

But I let it go, call it 'reality' if you like the word.

 

Your 'completed' version looks to me as the MR is virtual and subjective. And "all that exists in the world" is what we know of

(presumed?)

I could not give a better definition, but I claim the right to criticize.<G>

 

Best wishes

 

JohnM

----- Original Message -----

From: Tim Gwinn

To: ***

Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 3:21 PM

Subject: Re: Function and functional organization

Hi John M,

 

Yep, I screwed up. I did not intend to make a division between "self" and "material reality", as if self is - as you pointed out - outside of nature, somehow. That was grossly in error. I'll blame it on posting too late at night...but really it was plain sloppiness.

 

I also apologize for getting lazy, and not always addressing my posts distinctly to "JohnK" vs "JohnM". That was rude of me. :(

 

As you point out, my formulation of "material reality" was too much of an objectification(?) of our internal conception of it. After thinking about this overnight, I might rephrase my view more completely as:

 

'Material reality' is the posited noumenal entirety, which we then presume to perceive and cognize - in other words, via modeling relations - as being all that exists in the world.

 

So, with regard to question of whether functions (or atoms, or whatever) are material or not (in this sense of material), the question is then more fully stated as "Do the effective processes in the posited noumenal entirety transduce through commuting modeling relations into what we call "functions" (or "atoms", or whatever)?"
 

Also, can you elaborate on "homousion vs homoiusion"? I enjoy your philological abilities and I am unfamiliar with those Latin terms and could not find a good reference on the 'net.

 

Regards,

Tim

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:***On Behalf Of John M
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 2:50 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: Function and functional organization

(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 -----

From: Tim Gwinn

To: ***

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