Re: Is reality complex? / Redux: Free-will

["John Kineman" <***>]

Jamie,

Thanks for the biographical - it is interesting and important to hear
each other's personal stories, I think, because so much of what we think
and which path we take is based on impressions from experience and our
particular inquisitiveness. Your story was very illuminating and
reminiscent of much of my own, except that I have never entered much of
the higher professional circuits on this stuff (attempting to do so now
via the University research appointment). For me it began as a personal
side-line that eventually became my main obsession and has now taken
over virtually all my work and most of my play. Anyway, I find much in
common with what you say, except for the parts I don't understand.

On that note, see comments below:

James N Rose wrote:

>Dear John K.,
>
>Thank you for forwarding Judith Rosen's
>remarks on my Nov 1 postings.
>
>I'll re-cap a bit, then comment ...
>
>
>...
>
>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.
>
I understand this as the complementarity (as defined in physics)
relationship represented by a non-commuting modeling relation; i.e.,
that there are a many to many relationship between structures and
functions, once functions themselves are taken seriously in the theory
(which most are opposed to doing).

>
>Or,
>
>Does it even make sense to talk about partial v. complete?
>Why fret over perfect 1 to 1 mapping?
>
My understanding is that the perfect 1:1 mapping, i.e., full commutation
of the modeling relation, is Rosen's definition of machine and thus
determinism. From this view, it seems to be an artifact of theory rather
than nature; except that we can point to machines that behave like a
commuting modeling relation in those specific aspects that are devoid of
formal contingencies (encodings and decodings), which are also involved
with the still mysterious idea of "abstration."

So, in this view, is free-will tied up with abstraction??

>
>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.
>
>
Yes, that makes the most sense to me as well.

>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?'.
>
>
The idea that information itself is a natural entity seems a related
concern; one I am intrigued with in regard to ecosystems.

>If the performance rules are applicable in alternatively
>renderable domains, that trumps mapping.
>
>
"Applicable" meaning partially? Then I think mapping is or primary
interest, because the partial commutation where both the applicabilities
and the inapplicabilities are intresting, is best discussed as a mapping
issue. Where applicable means completely, then mapping is irrelevant, as
there's no difference and thus no mapping process necessary to explain.

>Closure v. non-closure  and model v. nature becomes
>secondary.  Not unimportant, just 'secondary'.
>
>
In the fully commuting situation - i.e., mechanisms?

>If the performance lifetime of a system never feels its
>limitations, then whether there -are- limitations or not
>is moot.
>
>
Which I take as applying to the case of the 2nd Law thermo limits. Who
cares about the universal reconning (which itself can be disputed) when
the scale between universe and organism is so vastly different that
there is little or no local effect except the rules of energy
dissipation (Stan's point), which can be circumvented by design (my
point). Also the higher energy (or material) requirements for
circumventing 2nd Law thermo locally are all but irrelevant for the same
reason; that locally the reserve of both energy and material is
plentiful. Where it is not, we run into the issue of resource limitation
which one could attribute to these laws, but even there biology has a
workaround -- it reproduces and dies, thus changing the scale at which
resources are required. So at every turn the so-called limits are
circumvented. The apparent effort of doing that (it looks like effort to
us, thinking energetically rather than purposefully) can be taken as
proof that the physical laws are in force, or turning it around, the
fact that such circumvention is common can be taken as creating a
situation where it is not. Then there can be a chicken-egg discussion,
which of course gets very philosophical.

>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.  :-)
>
Not certain I understand this comment, or perhaps I'm in a different
orbit. It seems to me that living systems are continuously resolving a
fundamental performance conflict represented by a non-commuting modeling
relation. The attempt to resolve that continuous mis-match
(complementarity between form and function) logically produces pathways
of development, life strategies, evolution, and many subtleties of human
experience. It seems to define the requirement for inventiveness, which
in the ultimate theoretical limit could include invention of physical
laws (a separate discussion of ontologies).

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