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[Judith's remarks
in bold]
In a living system, it's not really a case of
"changes" (which implies moving from state to state) as a constant dynamical
process.
To me,
"changes" implies moving from state to state only if the "changes" are
considered as discrete unique events to which state information can be
attached. That would be the case where discretely measured changes are used as
the basis for labels for "time", but in general changes need not be considered
discrete.
My intuition about time
is based on the idea of a dynamic system never being in any single "state". The
quality "Life" (in an organism) is a fluid, dynamical quality or
" process" rather than a state.
Doesn't
the phrase "dynamic" or "dynamical quality" here simply refer
to "a system's changes over time"? And "process" similarly mean "a series
of actions or changes over time"? My point being that it seems you are
essentially invoking the notion of "changes" or "changes over time" as a way
to characterize "time", albeit through different terminology.
I wonder if what is fundamental to
material reality is not 'time' & 'space', but rather 'change' or
'action'. In that case, time & space are merely conceptual tools for aiding
our comprehension of change/action.
Regards,
Tim
In a living system, it's not really a case of
"changes" (which implies moving from state to state) as a constant dynamical
process. There is no "state" in a living system, only a dead one. This was the
source of so much of the trouble in trying to use contemporary physics or
quantum physics to try and answer biological questions, which was what led my
father to look at the questions differently. He started also examining the
roots of what is accepted as the "laws" of physics and found that various
assumptions that became part of the basis for those laws were incorrect
assumptions. When he applied that same examination to most seemingly
carved-in-stone laws in current scientific approaches, he found many similar
cases of early mistakes leading to conclusions that are
misleading.
My intuition about time is based on the idea of a
dynamic system never being in any single "state". The quality "Life" (in an
organism) is a fluid, dynamical quality or " process" rather than a
state. It's something that cannot be tampered with beyond a small group of
exceptions and still remain life. It also cannot go backwards (as in reversing
aging, or undoing embryonic development) and yet there are different time
scales involved in the behavior of living organisms (which was how my father
developed the idea of Anticipatory Systems). There are so many aspects to the
essence or quality of life that intrigue me personally in regards to how time
is involved at the organizational level-- the level of Rosennean complexity.
That quite naturally leads me to ask what is time? And to want to apply my
father's approach to it, ignoring the seeming "laws" that have simply been
accepted heretofor, and ask "Why time?" Why is it what it is, how does it
work, what aspect of material reality is this shaping? It simply fascinates me
personally, which is why I keep pushing smart people like my Dad to take a
serious look at it and see what they can come up with!
Judith
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 11:01
PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Time and
context
Hi
Judith,
I don't know
if I could see time as being an actual quality. But, to be
honest, what keeps bothering me about my definition is that it
involves the use of the term "changes", and I am concerned that this may
involve circularity in the definition. Can one speak of "change"
without some (hidden) reference to time or temporality?
I suppose we
can use the language of FM and AS, and speak of "change" as simply being the
case where there are at least two measurements and whose respective
values are in different equivalence classes. But we actually mean by
"two measurements" to really be "two temporally
sequential measurements". -sigh-
Is this
unavoidably a circularity? Perhaps not. Or perhaps it
may be that such circularity is unavoidable. I have not yet thought it
through satisfactorily.
Regards,
Tim
Tim et al,
Right, that's what I thought, Tim. But whereas
you see time as an "observer-imposed relation", I see it as an actual
quality or force that is one of the ingredients of all matter. I think
time has an essence that can be figured out and understood by science, in
the same way that life can. I think time behaves differently in
relationships with different systems, such that complexity intensifies the
effects. The more complex a system is, the more it's relationship with
time is intensified. I wonder whether perhaps one of the reasons living
systems have behaviors so different from non-living ones is partly due to
this intensification. Just one more thing I'd love to discuss with my
father, you know?
Judith
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003
3:58 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Time and
context
Hi
Judith,
I think we
are indeed each looking of time in somewhat different ways. As do
you, I do not think time is "merely a figment of collective human
imagination". Not entirely, anyway. To me, time is the
observer-imposed relation of changes in some physical
clock system as a reference system to changes in
some physical system under study.
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