Hi, Pete, Tim, et al,
Maxwell's Demon In a Skirt, here. I see two areas in the
ongoing discussion that I have something to add to.
One is the Chaitin limitations. I met this guy, at the Santa
Fe Institute, when my father was there for the same meetings that Chaitin was
participating in. He seemed much put off by my father, and avoided us most of
the time. He hadn't written his book by that point (with Complexity in the
title), but his talk was summed up by my father-- as Pete has correctly
paraphrased: "He's talking about "complicatedness", not complexity." My father
said Chaitin's work was interesting mathematically but doesn't answer any of the
deep questions. Maybe Chaitin never tried or even wanted to answer the deep
questions? I don't know. Applied math is a whole 'nother animal. But whatever he
intends with his work, that's what I remember of meeting Chaitin.
Incidentally, I don't think he ever referenced my father in any of his work,
either. Since the book I saw of his in a bookstore was supposedly about
"complexity", and came out a couple years after the Santa Fe meetings where we
met him, I took that to mean he dismisses Rosennean Complexity entirely.
However, I have had no contact with the man in more than half a decade. I would
agree that even if Chaitin sees no value in my father's work, that doesn't mean
Chaitin's work is useless. It's probably very useful in dealing with "simple"
but complicated things.
The other subject mentioned, about which I know considerably
more, is the subject of Robert Rosen's "blind spots" or weaknesses.
Scientifically speaking, I think the only one I can list is that he was human.
That's both a strength and a weakness, and the diagnosis is as subjective as
anything humans base their opinions on. So any weakness I list is likely to be
only "weak" in a certain light and then, only in certain people's minds.
For example, he decided that the process of awarding Nobel Prizes was entirely
politicized and that it had little to do with merit. Once he made that
determination, he ignored all awards groups and the people involved. Some might
say that was a weakness; he never was willing to play the game. In fact, he even
went the other direction, out of disgust (and sheer perversity) over the
irrelevant nature of the whole circus. However.... If you're a scientist
and want to make a contribution to creating a positive, strategic position
for yourself-- with the funding and freedom to be able to do your work your
way-- maybe it behooves you to "play the game" at least a LITTLE. He would have
had an easier career if he had been a bit more politically active, but he felt
it was all beside the point and had a distaste for engaging in it, period. I
respect him for that, but others have damned him and called his attitude
"stupidity". Believe it or not, I think there is some small truth to that.
But I understand why he made the choices he made. His biggest ambitions were all
internal.
One other weakness worth mentioning is that while he was
"rather smart" in science.... he was lousy at money management. Just lousy.
Balancing a check book? Keeping track of details? Forget it! He threw all the
mail he didn't want to deal with into a pile at his townhouse, which I
discovered when I went up to Halifax to help him break out of the hospital after
a particularly bad episode of diabetic side effects. In this pile were things
like tax refund checks and royalty checks for thousands of dollars, some of
which were expired and not cashable. There were also Canadian IRS notices that
he had back taxes due that, because he didn't respond, were accruing massive
penalties and interest. He was hopeless at handling such things. Lots of
opportunities missed.
Judith