----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 12:54
PM
Subject: Re: Rashevsky's influence on
Robert Rosen
Hi
Judith,
Thanks for the
clarification. I had to go back and re-read your father's comments about
Rashevsky in LI and AS, and his posthumous
"sketch" (his wording) of Rashevsky in the beginning of Progress
in Theoretical Biology #2, and realized that I had previously
read more into them than was actually there about Rashevsky's influence.
In my quick
review, the only comment that I saw where Robert Rosen explicitly granted
Rashevsky a precedence of ideas was in his "Is there a Unified
Mathematical Biology?" in Foundations of Mathematical Biology
Vol 3:
"We believe it
was Rashevsky who first grasped that it was relational characteristics which
underlie the basic intuitions which provide the very stuff of biology." [p.
386]
Of course, this
may have been one of those instances where Rosen, as you say, "took great
pains to give credit to Rashevsky", perhaps omitting that he had already
reached a similar conclusion on his own . Certainly, although they
both fell under the rubric of 'relational biology', Rashevsky's biotopological
mapping and Rosen's relational approach were quite distinct, and led in
very different directions.
Regards,
Tim
There is a fallacy in the view that Professor Rashevsky
"influenced" my father into his view of "Complexity" or was the genesis of
these ideas. Quite the reverse occurred.
Rashevsky had managed, on his own, to realize that the
reductionist approach wasn't working, and try casting about for reasons why.
His relational theories were groundbreaking and were different enough to be
regarded as dangerously treasonous and unscientific by the "mainstream" in
academia. However, when my father stumbled onto Rashevsky's office at the U.
of Chicago, he had already arrived at all of those conclusions and taken it
a great deal further. His decision to change his major from mathematics was
motivated by the existence of a man with the vision to recognize when
precious notions about the "way things are" is not compatible with the way
things "really" are... and with the courage to stand up and say so. In
effect, Rashevsky saved my father a good deal of time: He made it possible
for my father to switch from "tool acquisition" (which was why he was in
mathematics in the first place) to the "real" work. It was a very lucky set
of circumstances, indeed.
Is there anyone on the list now who has not been sent the
"Autobiographical Reminiscences" of Robert Rosen? Please email me privately
and I will send you that paper, via return email. I am making that paper
available to everyone, free of charge, because it is so important to
understanding my father's work, his approach, and his personality. In it, I
think, you will find that Rashevsky provided a "safe harbor" in which
to do the work that my father set for himself, and which Rashevsky was
merely aiding and abetting. In other words, it is inaccurate to
characterise Rashevsky as the "genesis" of any of my father's
theoretical beliefs.
My father took great pains to give credit to Rashevsky for his
vision and his courage, and felt that Rashevsky was given a bum deal by
academia. He sought to ameliorate that by including Rashevsky's name in
print as often as possible, pointing out where his friend had seen the truth
before the rest of science. It would not suit my father's purposes to say
whether he had come to the same conclusions first or at the same time,
because it wasn't about that. He loved and respected Rashevsky, and
mourned his loss. He held on to his anger at academia for the treatment of
Rashevsky even more tightly than any anger he felt over his own treatment by
academia.
It is my assessment that Robert Rosen was light years ahead of
Rashevsky before he even met him. It is also my assessment that my father
would have done the work he did regardless of Rashevsky's involvement.
Rashevsky may be responsible for my father's willingness to write down what
he was discovering, though. That, he DID influence.
Judith