Re: Rosenean theory, Nature article

> Outline/sketch of letter...
>
> The Concepts essay by J.M. Ottini, "Engineering Complex
> Systems" (Nature 427, 399, 29 January 2004) raises
> interesting and profound aspects of complexity and
> complex systems as related to engineering. As people
> interested in complexity, we wish to note that theoretical
> biologist and mathematician [he wasn't really a mathematician. Would "biophysicist" work for you?] Robert Rosen (born 1934, died 1998) worked for his
> entire 40+ year career to study and develop a theory of
> complexity that deals with and clarifies many of these same concepts.
>
> For example, Ottini wrote "Complex systems...display
> organization without a central organizing authority
> — emergence..." And regarding analysis of complex
> systems he wrote, "decomposing the system and analysing
> sub-parts do not necessarily give a clue as to the behaviour
> of the whole".

Rosen developed his theories of complexity from the perspective of biology. In his analysis, he realized that the organization of living things is more important than the actual matter they are made of. As he studied this organization, he documented certain aspects that were universals of all living systems. He collectively named this collection of properties of organization "complexity". One of the main tenets of Rosennean Complexity is the fact that these kinds of systems are not reducible because the organization is destroyed when the system is fractionated. He further realized that the same thing is true of the smallest building blocks of the material world; the atom. This discovery meant that complexity is an inherent property of the universe, not merely the subset of systems in the universe that are alive. Thus, Rosennean Complexity is a general principle and the artificial boundaries between biology and physics are not justified.
>
> Ottini also wrote. "...engineers are beginning to get insight
> from biology. The emergence of function — the ability of
> a system to perform a task — can be guided by its
> environment, without imposing a rigid blueprint."
>
Rosen said that the concept of function has been wrongly excluded from scientific thought because it was seen as being "non-objective" or a human-imposed point of view on natural phenomena. However, once that artificial prohibition is lifted, function can be seen dispassionately as one of the driving forces in complexity. Rosen defined life as "an emergent property in a sufficiently complex system", when complexity was defined the way he defined it. Biology is the study of living things, therefore, biology is the province of higher levels of complex organization. The study of them and the study of their organization can therefore teach us a great deal about everything else.

What complexity forces is a paradigm shift that reorganizes the sciences, pulling both physics and biology inside complexity... and putting the mechanistic/reductionistic paradigm into the limited avenues of applications that rightly suit it. Complex systems require new approaches to unlock their secrets, but this kind of shift has the potential to answer the most stubborn mysteries of universe. The nice side effect of this shift is that we will also be able to address-- and finally resolve-- the vexing environmental and medical issues facing humanity today right here on Earth.

There are books detailing Rosen's views available, such as "Life, Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry Into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life" and "Essays on Life, Itself; a Companion Volume". More of Rosen's work is becoming accessible all the time. Some websites of interest: Columbia University Press or Amazon.com, www.rosen-enterprises.com, panmere.com, and the the internet discussion group; ***

>
> Due to a variety of circumstances including his untimely
> death in 1998, Rosen's work is just becoming more well-known over the past few years. We believe
> that Rosen's work is unique in providing a robust basis for
> understanding and interacting with complex systems, and
> that it is thus of great potential value to both basic science
> and engineering.
>
>
Sincerely,