Re: The Santa Fe Institute

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Hi James,

I have been advised to be more politically correct in public, which is good advice 
(although I must confess... I am so bloody sick of political correctness I can't it.) My 
problem is... There is a fine line between political correctness and bald-faced lying for 
the sake of expediency. That said, however, I realize that there is a need on a public 
forum to allow others to feel comfortable believing things that are the opposite of what 
I believe and I'm a strong believer in that kind of freedom of choice. So-- let's see if 
we can discuss this under those terms...

My father's initial reaction to the news of the start up of the Santa Fe Institute was a 
great deal of enthusiasm because SFI was supposed to study complexity. His experiences 
with the institute initially led him to be disappointed because it was not complexity the 
way he defined it, it was "complicatedness" or intricacy or some other synonym but it 
wasn't the kind of science he was hoping it would be. Over time, however, he saw some 
real good come out of the work they were doing, and in one of the last books he wrote, he 
even mentioned some of these things (a sort of "mea culpa" apology for his past criticism 
of the institute). Perhaps Tim can find it and post the page number (I think it's Life, 
Itself) because I'm not at home right now, I'm in L.A. so I can't look it up. Anyway, his 
relationship with SFI was a congenial one. I attended a meeting there with him in the 
early 1990's so I saw some of this interaction first hand. I also saw that no one else 
was doing the kind of work my father was doing, and very few of the participants of the 
meeting understood what he was sayiong. But that was the "norm"! Ultimately, he shrugged 
over the fact that the institute was mostly interested in pursuing what, to him, were 
little side issues that didn't have much to do with the foundational issues. His interest 
was always the foundational issues.

As to your other questions: The word Meme is not one I ever heard my father use. However, 
the gist of your question is more of a modelling issue. He wrote extensively on the 
subject, in all of his books, because it was such an important aspect of trying to study 
and communicate knowledge about complex systems. I will have to refer you to the various 
chapters on modelling relationships in his books to see whether he addressed the issues 
you particularly raised, but bear in mind he may have used different names to refer to 
the ideas than you do. Perhaps some of the other list members can talk about translations 
of some of the terms?

Judith

-----Original Message-----
From: James N Rose <***>
Sent: Feb 21, 2004 8:38 AM
To: ***
Subject: [ROSEN] after the: Landauer and Bellman critique

Judith,

'Antic Sys Sci' .. we got the joke even before your clarification :-).

.. but your jibe at SFe sort of surprised me .. was that your
dad's opinion also?  and what did he think of Herb Simon?

And now I have to ask a question .. which may have already
been topicced here (excuse me if it has) .. did your father ever
think/talk about the memes, math, or language that would
allow one to _transition_ between complexity and simplicity,
between the modelled and the natural, in smooth (formal?)
ways?

That the 'modelled' is a truncation of the 'natural' (a close
approximation, but missing certain qualities) is one thing,
but being able to 'model the truncated/complete' relationship
is either

1) a meta-model itself, and therefore incomplete in its
   ability to render the full nature of 'the natural' in
   its most open and indefinite form

or

2) a relationship which requires .. in it's being a 'natural'
   one .. a shared commensurate set of memes and qualia ..
   common to -both- and which would allow whole-to-the-point-
   of-nothing-being-excluded aspects, -- with a useful set of
   symbols to identify and converse 'with total inlcusiveness'
   -- about those aspects.

   In other words (and this is the one track of concept/reality
   exploration I am foremost committed to), can there exist an
   invented/contrived -model- which is strong enough to _identify_
   and actively use -all- of the qualia of 'natural' which are
   ostensibly not really present in any given 'model of -natural-'?

   Reduxed in math potential:  can there exist a math term -in the model-
   (translatable in all its specifics [model->natural AND natural->model])
   so that computations can be done .. moving between the two types of
   'reality' .. without losing any information or at least bookmarked so
   that temporarily set-aside information is not lost (merely held in a
   side or stasis state) .. and being able to retrieve the information
   in the next stage of a calculation or transform .. or when going back
   to the 'other frame of reference'?

   Did your father ever consider this/these possibilities?

James Rose


Web address: www.rosen-enterprises.com
Alternate Email: ***