Re: Rashevsky's influence on Robert Rosen

[John M <***>]

Thanks, Tim, so noted.

I am a believer in advancement: earlier ideas do not include

later inventions - even if these are 'based' on them, since the

cognitive inventory we use is advancing through novelties.

Rashevsky was earlier, Rosen went further. Now it is time to

go even further, which does not mean to disregard/abandon

the "prior art" geniuses. My "ancient knowledge" starts 2004.

(Including my own). No "scientific Alzheimer" though.

 

JohnM

----- Original Message -----

From: Tim Gwinn

To: ***

Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 5:00 PM

Subject: Re: Rashevsky's influence on Robert Rosen

Hi JohnM,

 

I think there is some confusion here. :)  Nothing I wrote was intended to conflict with or argue with Judith's comments. My comments were meant to show that I had misinterpreted Rosen's praise for Rashevsky as somehow also acknowledging that Rashevsky was the originator or genesis of those ideas. And, as I said, the solitary quote may well indicate no more than a desire on Rosen's part to credit Rashevsky. So, I see no conflict in my remarks with what Judith wrote.

 

I do think that Rashevsky also saw that issues in biology were symptomatic of far more than just biology. One of the reasons I asked if anyone knew who owned the rights to Rashevsky's work was because I wanted to transcribe one of his papers from an old issue of BMB onto my website, because it spoke about the far-reaching implications of the failure of reductionist approaches to biology to answer basic questions, the analogous applications of biological organizational concepts to social systems, the role that Godel's theorem might play in relation to a physics that is enlarged to incorporate relational biology, etc.  - all very Rosennean-like concepts.

 

Whether Rashevsky understood this prior to Rosen, or vice versa, or it was a case of two great minds thinking along similar lines, I do not know. I certainly see no reason to doubt Judith's portrayal of it. 

 

Although Rashevsky was aware of some of these far-reaching implications, he seemed (from what I have read) not to have expended his energies beyond biological/social systems, whereas Robert Rosen certainly pursued these implications into the grander realms of all of physics, science, and epistemology.

 

Regards,

Tim

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:***On Behalf Of John M
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 3:02 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: Rashevsky's influence on Robert Rosen

Tim, I keep out of this, yet I can't keep my mouse shut for a short

quip:

your quote sounds to me like something FOR biology. IMO RR

is (although based in his thinking upon) much much more than

biology, so I see no conflict with what Judith wrote.

As I would formulate (in my perfect and well establishe ignorance):

R introduced RR to a certain way of biological thinking and then,

RR expanded it into HIS system - related to, but not pertaining to biology.

John