Re: System boundaries and science

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

Dear Judith,

I get a lot of pleasure reading your posts.  First,
for your clear and easy language and explanations.
Second, because you write/speak with the authority
of two voices, two minds - your own and your father's.


> Judith Rosen wrote:
>
> Hi Jamie,
>
> I don't mind "re-hashing" these ideas, as you put it.
> That's what the list is for, I think.
>
> One of the most common problems when discussing systems in a
> scientific manner, after "the language problem"(!!!!!!), is
> the "where do I (the scientist) end and where does the system
> (the one under study) begin?" problem. My father's point of
> view was that all science is a human construct. It is "of the
> mind". It is an abstraction of the world, filtered through our
> perceptions and analyzed with our human experience of the world
> as the context.

And respecting that view, I look over its shoulder to see
if there is a 'source'.  And to me, it seems there is.  It
can be found in the performance relations of the material that
the somatics which enact 'the mind' are made of.  In a strange
way, we are atoms which bootstrap themselves into an
organizational form so that they can examine the nature
their own nature. So whatever 'abstractions of the world' we
come to, are first of all products of atomia, and before that of
particula, and before that of essential spacetime itself.

Which brings us to:

> Therefore, he said, there is no such thing as "total objectivity".

Which is a perfectly correct statement, to counter the scope
of the old/conventional paradigms of science.  But which I
respectfully suggest no longer holds if we truly cleanhouse
of -all- the deep misnomers.

There is no total objectivity, when we realize that
reductionist/godelian/cartesian cuts never divorce the rules
of performance from examples of performance.  The trap is
always trying to define or show perfect invariances as existing
in examples which are random and always displaying of variation,
or perturbation or noise or random influences.  Can't be done.
Variable subjective events are our only window for seeing
'invariant rules' at work.  And there's no way to parse up
reality in reductionistic slicings in order to get at 'perfection'
when the only things we can access are varying performences of
'thingness'.

And just as your father did, I ventured into new definitions
as well.  (There really isn't any alternative to doing this;
and it sure upsets folks who are rotely committed to the
prior paradigm)

My 'solution' is to sidestep the extant methodology entirely.
To forget the old parsings.

<http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/exhibits.htm>
  see esp. "Objectivity is not an 'object'"

> Furthermore, he also said "there is nothing more abstract
> than a number". In other words, the attempts to be "totally
> objective" [-- by using technology to reduce a living
> organism down to some numerical value on a print-out from
> some piece of equipment--] are completely beside the point,
> if what you want to know is why the organism was alive.



> Be that as it may, the fact is that humans want to understand
> the universe (and ourselves) as well as we are able.

To me, this is the seminal clue, not just a challenge to inquiry.
-Why- do we 'want to' understand?  Can we trace the impetus
towards 'investigation' as sourcing from the dynamics of
metabolisms, of atoms, of fundamental particles, of
spacetime directly?      My answer has been ...  yes, we can.


> Whatever limitations we have are something we can't do
> anything about.

:-)  maybe yes, maybe no  :-)

>[clip]


> The discussion of the apple and the color of the apple
> and all that is what I consider to be: the mind chasing
> it's own thought-created tail. It's beside the point.

I can see how you might come to that conclusion,
but all of your next questions are not so much discreditors
of the gedankenexperiment as they are important
extensions of it.  [See same page cited above; "Newton's apple"]

At Tucson II 1996 I had the apple in a black lucite
box which people opened by themselves to let in light
and engage in an 'observation performance' act.  Also
an extended short discourse on what you mention here,
Judith.


> What about a blind scientist who is studying the apple? What happens to
> the aspect of color in the apple? OR... What about the apple in the dark? Is the
> color still there in the absence of light? OR...What about.........  That's not
> the point.

> To "do science", as my father put it, one has to define one's
> boundaries and proceed. Otherwise, there is no science. Science is an abstract
> human pursuit, period. Any further abstractions are no better and no worse,
> inherently. It's all in how one does such things, and the kind of consistency
> one maintains, etc... (Am I getting my thoughts across so far? I sure hope so!)

Yes.  And I hope my related thoughts in return as well,
that the universe has a foundational consistency that has
to be in place prior to any orchestrated consistency
accomplished through our 'science'.  Science is a gift of
the extant nature of being.  Infants 'do science' as they
discover the world they are part of.  Our adult human written
formalized instantiation of it is merely a refined version
of something inately being done by life and creatures
all the time, everyday, as I see it.


> When my father was discussing simple systems and complex
> systems, what he was doing was making comparisons. In order
> to do that, he defined what system he was talking about.
> Is that "an abstraction"? Sure. What else is new? This is
> "science", after all.

> [clip]

> The point here is to describe simplicity in relation to
> something else, which for him was "complexity". How are
> they different? It was the job of answering that question
> that was occupying a lot of his brain time. So, he would
> define the boundaries of the system he was looking at,
> and describe how it was different from an organism (a complex
> system, about which all the same arguments ensue regarding
> where the system ends and how it is not "divorcable" from the
> larger system of the Earth ecosystem and.....).

:-)   Are molecules of oxygenated gas .. necessary for
our lives .. to be considered 'us' only during the time
they are bonded and moving through our tissue? or wouldn't
it be appropriate to say they are us even when floating
'out there' in the yet-to be breathed in spaces?

Isn't is important to protect the 'us'es of the future by
protecting the breathable air today, for future's use?

To protect the environment is an act of 'self preservation'
in the Rosen/global/gaian sense, even though it makes
no sense to the "us versus them" mentality of mechanistic
reductionist thinkers.  Me is me, and everything else is
everything else, to the old schoolers.  (who unfortunately
still helm industries and control financial distribution
decisions).  But if we keep at it, things -will- change.
:-)

> [clip]
>
> My father believed he had discovered the answers to his motivating question. In
> articulating his conclusions, he declared that there was a fundamental
> difference between these two kinds or "classifications" of systems-- simple and
> complex. In his comparisons and analyses of the differences, he developed new
> ways of perceiving the material world, which are radically different from the
> methods and approaches of "mainstream science".
>
> A big part of that articulation was pure definition of terms.
>
> That's when the "language problem" rears it's ugly head and interferes with
> communication, fouling everything up royally (and giving us all headaches)!

A VERY challenging and tough row to hoe.  But all the more crucial.
Breaking old mindsets and molding new ones.  Tain't for us, 't is
for the benefit of the future we resolve ourselves to doing this
kind of work.  We're shifting the cognitive inertia of a whole
planet's population.  Often thankless, often rebuffed, but in the
end, worthwhile .. and completely evolutionary.

> Judith

Jamie