Re: Free-will

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

Tim Gwinn wrote:
>
> [Wandering thoughts follow:]
> Rosen says near the end of Essays:
> "On the other hand, in a complex system, there is no meaningful distinction
> between hardware and software, no single over-arching function that stays
> fixed while only its arguments can vary. In material  terms, a system of
> this type is literally infinitely open, whereas a mechanism or simple system
> can be, at best, finitely open." [EL337-338]

I can't tell you how many times I've made this point at ISSS
and Complexity/Emergence conferences and in discussions online
at related listservs, all to fall on deaf ears.  Its as if
the cartesian mindset has a strangle hold on western science
and now science at large .. even in the General Systems
community, where such a notion should be embraced wholeheartedly.

It is as challenging a concept as quantum 'logic' is compared
with 'common logic' and relativity, apparently.  But in a clear
analog, isn't form=function the same as matter=energy?   Einstein
established -one form- of that conversion relation, and now we
are simply looking at what that means in real-time context.
In 'performance context', where the conversion proportions now
hone in on 'law of least action'.  "Laws", actually. Because
process and 'streams of 'states'' are indistinguishable.

Fractal equations which produce 'fixed loci entities' called
attractors, are analog to electron wave iterations that
give narrow determinate 'shell' energy values.

The assignable 'energy values' of such shells are -process-
even though labeled with some state/particulate 'number'.

This notion invokes the most profound kind of mindshift.
It is as potentially revolutionary as the copernican
mindshift.  All the talk during the past century by
philosophers and psychologists about the importance
of 'becoming' versus the typical perception base of
'being' (G.Allport; Bohm; others) have been cases of
perceptive minds seeing the same important truth from
other alternative perspectives.

Our era is hungry to see that awareness raised to a
living panglobal pancultural thoughtway that is resident
in and part of the way all people think everywhere.

It is that real, that true, that important.

> If so, being "literally infinitely open" may mean there is
> no inherent limit on the range of possible responses. But
> on the other hand, how such a system goes from an infinite
> number of possibilities to one specific response is unclear
> to me. I have not yet found where Rosen comments further
> specifically on the consequences of "infinitely open" in
> this regard. Perhaps it is unclear to me because the notion
> of 'response' is of a mechanistic heritage, and the whole
> scheme of input followed by response is just a poor
> abstraction. I don't know at the moment.

It's not a trivial transform.  But the ease with which
the existential universe accomplishes it gives us hope
and a clue that there -is- an easy way of doing it.

> Regards,
> Tim

Jamie