Is reality complex? / Redux: Free-will

["James N Rose" <***>]

Dear John K.,

Thank you for forwarding Judith Rosen's
remarks on my Nov 1 postings.

I'll re-cap a bit, then comment ...


>[Judith Rose]
>Judith Rosen, here. My father didn't address the issues
>of "free will" except in his papers about the nature of
>consciousness and the comparisons of "mind" with "brain".
>The reason he did not is because it was not something
>that helped him answer the questions he wanted to answer.
>In other words, it was an interesting side road, but he
>was "following the problem" (What is life?) where it led,
>and that was more urgent to him than the puzzle of human
>interaction. But Mr. Rose is correct that my father's
>version of Complexity would certainly be applicable. In
>fact, I suspect that Rosennean concepts may be the only
>way to arrive at real understanding of the complexity of
>human interaction.
>
>I could argue that certain things that are considered
>"impossible" yield to the inventiveness of the human
>mind and become quite possible with the right approach
>and the right tools. In other words, I could be in Bali
>right now if it was a big enough priority......


>>[Jamie Rose]
>>Hi John K. [via ISSS-Issues & Complex-M]
>>
>>I'm glad you point out that Robert Rosen didn't
>>deal with this in his extensive writings, even
>>though it is germaine if not seminal to the scope of
>>his work distinguishing modeled vs natural systems.
>>
>>Free-will is both an abstraction and a constraint.
>>
>>You don't have the 'free will' to suddenly be in
>>Bali.  You don't have the 'free-will' to see
>>microwaves.  What we imagine as some sort
>>of 'unconstrained choice space' is really one that
>>is -adequate so we don't feel the limitations-.
>>
>>What we really have as free-will is a partial
>>capacity to break from past behaviors/choices,
>>but not the capacity to go beyond physical laws
>>or limitations.  Where even such 'possible acts
>>or events' of stochastic behavior groups like QM
>>are defined/described by hard-specifiable
>>(ie deterministic) rules.


Dear Judith,

For frame of reference, I have to say that my first
exposure to your father's, Robert Rosen's, ideas came
at the 1997 ICCS-1 conference when I had a chance to
spend quite a bit of time with Don Mikulecky - and other
attendees - discussing and comparing various ideas
on the table related to 'complexity'.

>From the scope of my own work - which I had presented at
"Towards a Science of Consciousness II" in 1996, had
shared with SFI in 1992 via contact with Mike Simmons -
it was immediately apparent to me, mine had much in common
with your father's work.

And I realized that - fortunately - we had both tackled
the same issue, but came at different parts of the challenge.
I say - fortunately - because in 1997 I was (even at 50 years
old) a veritable 'newcomer' to the General Systems and
Complexity communities, where as Robert Rosen's reknown
was more than firmly established.

Rosen (if I may use 3rd-person address from here on) honed
in on challenging any claims to 'infallibility' that
modelers/theorists make when patterns of behavior are
discerned and discovered in the world.  No description
of a system could ever rise to the full reality of that
system.  His conceptual lineage essentially being Godel,
Russell, et al.

Quite the challenge to -anyone- in -any- field whom
might say, 'here's a rule', 'here's an algorythm' ..
cast in stone and perfect, that will describe what's
going on. As was the drift of Complexity then.

Biologists, though, tend to see entities embedded
within extended environments and multiple relationships,
where as engineers and materialists tend to see sharp
demarcations, bounds and parameters.  And in Complexity,
the bias was toward the latter.

You might say, organicists see systems as open and only
closed 'virtually', where as materialists see systems
as effectively closed even while open in some virtual
extended sense.

Rosen stood astride the world of Logic.  Affirming
Godel's incompleteness notions as they would extend
to any juxtaposition of 'partial' with 'complete'.
But presenting it as a warning, "here, be sea monsters".
Claim seemingly 'perfect rules and patterns' but do so
at your own peril.

No wonder Don suffered such a raw reception in
Complexity that year.  Me too for that matter. :-)
Complexity and Chaos fields had blossomed in the
prestige of the discovery of new and wonderful
patterns of systems, fresh and full of promise.

My tack, from 1970 on, was a bit different.  In 1973
I wrote "Initial formulations for a unified field theory"
<http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/1973.htm> .

I went after the dynamics all the above entailed,
independent of any exposure to Ashby, Bertalanffy,
Beer, Rapoport, or Miller.  The universe, I reasoned,
was a coherent functioning 'whole' - completely
co-integrated, intersupportive and intercommunicative -
to a fault.  That is, -without exception-.

Such an occurrence -could- have a small set of
performance rules, even if the options and alternative
instantiations of those rules blew off the charts
hyperinfinitely.  Anything in opposition to a small
set of clean definite rules, would be to not just
allow, but require constant displays of disjointed
inconsistencies and functional incompatibilities
happening all over the place, all the time.

What I saw as key was coming to terms with
how closed and open systems were 'natural'
with each other, the priority being on how they
mutually co-relate and co-identify and co-function
in valid meaningful ways.  Wherein I taglined
my 1973 "mission statement" paper with this:

    "All "bounded" sets are compatible
      with unbounded set environments."

I opted to set aside the 'model VS natural' to focus
on the 'model AND natural'.  Because 'free will' had
to both represent the rules as they -are- instantiated
-and- the rules as model/guide -for- instantiation.

We aren't "at home 'in' the universe".   We actually
"-are- the universe discovering itself, being
introspective of itself". We are samples -of- 'the rules',
set on discovering what rules we are made of, wholly
and completely _because_ those rules -include- the
activity routine -to enact- self discovery behaviors.


Where Rosen felt comfortable with clear and
wonderful logic, 'free will' being a sideroad
diverging from that important path, I embraced
it's potential and coded performance information
as clues to the nature of the coexistential
relationship between sub-sets and sets, between
sub-classes and classes, between models and natural.

When you speak the same language and share
essentially the same notions, it's more likely than
not that important ideas will be co-arrived at.
I am positive that had Rosen chosen to, he
could have used 'free will' in the same way I
did.  He opted no, I opted yes.  No fault, no harm.

To me, "what is life?" and "what are the essentials
and the nature of human interaction?" are fundamentally
the same question.  Which is why it's reasonable
for you to deduce, Judith, that you "suspect that
Rosennean concepts may be the only way to arrive at real
understanding of the complexity of human interaction."
I'd respectfully proffer the Rosean solution rather
than the Rosennean, but time and the future will
resolve that, not us.  :-)

As far as whether getting to Bali on the spur of the moment
(or in some reasonable time frame of a few generations to
invent a mechanism that catches up with reasoned intentionality,
that can make 'free will' -real- .. "eventually" even if
it wasn't 'in the moment') ... OR ... in the evolutionary
biology frame [as I like to characterize it], where
through exploration of DNA and concommitant
'physiology space', Life (capital 'L') ... "learned"
how to fly ... and any number of other performance
potentials that were dormant or nascent inside precursor
structures and genetic potential moments, "Life" had the
'free will' to follow/explore things that weren't previously
possible, or if possible, just not tried.

The bind (not paradox) I find in the question of free-will
resides in something I mentioned above.  It's been seen
in other guises by many people, and endlessly debated
of course, but here, we frame it in words/memes peculiar
to Logic ...  and Rosen.  :-)

Is it reasonable, reliable, or even valid, to go the Liar's
Paradox one-better, and enunciate:

Can a fixed deterministic rule (presumed to preface and
frame the existence of this or any possible universe)
specify the existence of perfect open indeterminancy?

Substitute the word 'specify' with the word 'model'
and Rosen's Rule rises to the fore.

Or, is determinism a limitform afterfact of indeterminism?

Again, a Rosen Rule situation.

Or,

Does it even make sense to talk about partial v. complete?
Why fret over perfect 1 to 1 mapping?

Whether partial or complete, model or nature, there is
indisputable relation between them, and its those aspects
which are of priority.  In truth, there are no perfectly
closed systems, only virtually closed or sufficiently closed
ones.

Rose Reasoning insists that its the 'translations of
information between classes and sets' that's important.
The performance rules of information and communication
engagements and transformations, rather than 'does one
content account for some other content?'.

If the performance rules are applicable in alternatively
renderable domains, that trumps mapping.

Closure v. non-closure  and model v. nature becomes
secondary.  Not unimportant, just 'secondary'.

If the performance lifetime of a system never feels its
limitations, then whether there -are- limitations or not
is moot.

If a system is functionally self coherent and consistent
and never experiences or enacts a conflict of fundamental
performance (sudden cube of the distance rather than
square of the distance behaving in some partial sector
of its whole, for example), then no forced impositioned
actions are interpretable as 'free will'.

At least that's the view from this orbit.  :-)

Jamie Rose
Ceptual Institute
<http://www.ceptualinstitute.com>