Re: Fw: Rosennean definition of "life"

["John Kineman" <***>]

All, I'm really glad to read this, as I've concluded as much. The "closed to X cause" I think should be taken to mean that there are aspects of the organism's metabolism and repair processes that are passed on to future realizations that are sufficient to ensure new realizations of the system. That is a closure. It does not mean, nor can it mean, universal closure. It should be taken as a relative matter. That's why I think the continuum/threshold idea works. In a similar way, organisms seem to be closed to final cause - i.e., they define their own purposes and functions which evolve with the system. What about formal cause - are they not closed to their own genetic descriptions in the same way??

Judith Rosen wrote:

Hi Dan,

I won't argue the "closed to efficient cause" aspect becuase that's not the
lingo I used when discussing these concepts with my father. He never said
that any system on this planet was completely closed, quite the opposite.
That's what context-dependency is all about. But in his theoretical
framework, he had to make choices about definitions and about concepts
because he was a human being and had to rely on language to express his
thoughts. The choices he made were as imperfect as the language, but were
the best he could do at the time! Anyway, the point is that there needed to
be some way to talk about the difference between an organism and an
ecosystem, because, as he was trying to figure out why an organism was
alive, he noticed that there were differences like the one I was referring
to in my post.

This subject has come up repeatedly: the fact that Rosennean Complexity says
that a living organism is more complex than an ecosystem. Yes, there is
"life" in the ecosystem, but only by virtue of being made up of any number
of organisms as "parts" or components. When he was making a designation like
that, my father was looking only at the organization of the ecosystem and
comparing it to the organization of the organism. The difference between
those two "systems"  is in the level of organization of each one. That's
what complexity is using as a context: It has to do with organization. His
conclusion was that something happens spontaneously with the organization of
all things in the universe. He never claimed to me that he knew HOW it
happened, but it was clear that it does happen and that the property is
absolutely generic because atoms exhibit the same behavior as ecosystems (or
as organisms) and he called that property "complexity". But he saw that
there is clearly a difference between an atom's behavior and an organism's
behavior, which physics can't explain. He wanted to know what that
difference was and that was how he built what he built. What he described to
me as his definition of complexity doesn't use the "closed loops of
entailment" jargon or the "efficient cause" stuff. He used plain English
when discussing these ideas with me. My deep familiarity with the man and
his ideas over a lifetime is the only thing that allows me to follow even
part of the way into that kind of jargon. It's not my area.

Judith

Judith
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:49 AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Fw: Rosennean definition of "life"


  

Judith,

Re: this:

Judith Rosen wrote:
    

 What defines life is a certain critical level of complexity, a
threshold, whereby the organization of the system causes unique
        

properties
  

to emerge in the behavior of the system.  Those properties are the ones
        

my
  

father nailed down in his written work and are represented in his
(m,r)-system diagram. In that sense, an amoeba, while microscopic, is at
        

a
  

higher level of complexity (or if you prefer; "more complex") than the
ecosystem of the planet.
        

I would have to say that this view is perhaps 1/3 of the story, and
that the two other views of life would suggest that 1) life is at least
as much an ecosystemic, network or extensive/non-local property as
it is an organismal, cellular or localized property, and 2) the relation
of the two seemingly contradictory (but likely complementary) views
or models of life - organismic vs ecosystemic - is where it gets really
interesting, in the sense of reolving an apparent paradox.

If you doubt that life is necessarily more than organismic, try these
thought experiments:

1. Hold your breath, stop drinking water or fast. Life will cease for
a human or for *any organism* so disconnected from the fully
necessary influxes of energy and matter that are largely provided
by other life forms (i.e. life provides O2 or CO2, H2O and either
organic or inorganic food/nutrients to other life *faster* than
would be possible via physical process alone).

2. Plan a self-sustaining life colony on another planet. The minimal
complement of functional components will be ecosystemic - no
organism could achieve self-sustenance off-earth.

I do not think organismic life is closed to efficient cause - as subset
in organismic form, life depends on other life, other functional life
forms. I do think that ecosystemic life is closed to efficient cause.
With the coupled combo of autotrophic and heterotrophic
functional forms life is much more truly self-causing, self-sustaining
and self-perpetuating.

Dan