Re: Relational "Space"

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Tim,

Re: relational forcing functions - yes I think of constraints too.
And I should not have used force or forcing really, but propensity
is likely more general term/concept as used by Bob Ulanowicz
and Karl Popper - like an influence or tendency but not a 1:1
mapping of cause to effect like a force would be (a maximally
constrained propensity such that if A happens then B must always
happen, no exceptions. For a propensity, if A happens B may
happen but occasionally something else can happen, there is
contingency and chance and wiggle room).

Bob U. has also made nice graphs with some good candidate for
kinds of axes we might consider for a relational space. The two
axes he uses are for ecosystem trophic flow networks, but these
are likely extendable to other types of flows as well as interaction
networks, are 1) effective connectance per node, and 2) number
of trophic levels. We might generalize these a bit to think of axis
1 as being degrees of freedom or perhaps number of variables
that are interdependent, and axis 2 as hierarchical levels of
organization or interactions between flows or influences of
significantly differing rates of flux or residence time or turnover
time (like matter turnovers much faster, resides a shorter time in
1-celled algae than for killer whales, and these rates and all those
in between in the food chain/web are "related", since they are all
connected via feeding relations - killer whales, in terms of their
mass/matter, are just accumulated carnivores who are
accumulated herbivores who are accumulated algae, and killer
whales also release inorganic nutrients that feedback to keep the
algae going, plus they alter the dynamics of their prey, and so on
going back down the food chain, etc).

Within the space of these two axes - like number of trophic levels
on the X axis and number of effective connectance per node on the
Y axis - Bob finds that all real ecosystems (he has charted 37 or so)
are constrained and exist in a small region this coordinates system
bounded by 3.01 as the max. effective connections per node, 1 as
the min. effective connections per node, 2 as the min. number of
trophic levels (i.e. autotrophs and heterotrophs - why I say life is
always ecosystemic, not really (just) organismic) and about 4 or 5
as the max. number of trophic levels. Other people find this same
last limit of 4-5 to the number of trophic levels and attribute it to
resource limits and also dynamic stability limits. No one else that I
know of has framed in all 4 sides of this region, an area Bob U. calls
the "window of vitality".

Within this window we might say that relational conditions within a
network of interactors, or the parameters or "measures"/metric/indices
describing the relations, interactions are suitable for life, and outside
this window they are not suitable for life. We can have other types of
systems (a gas in a beaker might have much more than 3 connections
per "node" or particle, as in many more degrees of freedom; and a
crystalline quartz lattice might have fewer than 2 "trophic levels" - a
single rate/frequency of oscillation, or single level of hierarchy of
order), but these are not alive.

We might also say that within this window it is the relational
parameters or "relational dynamics" or topology that determine what
happens with matter/energy/space/time - life makes these physical
parameters or measures conform to its needs by the way it is organized
in relational space. These could result in "folding" of these physical
measures as in cause flowing from the future or function differing
depending on folding in space or energy appearing to be created or
not being conserved, as in a spontaneous tendency to order that runs
counter to the arrow of time suggested by entropy and the assumption
that energy only decays in quality during any transformation.

Some rambling thoughts that may be :-) related...

Dan


Tim Gwinn wrote:

> Dan,
>
> I keep being drawn back to this post of yours. I'm still dubious of QM
> nonlocality, but I like your idea as a broader concept. The idea of a
> relational "space" is intriguing. I wonder if "distance in relational space"
> is perhaps related to 'interaction' between systems? It may not be a matter
> of continuous degrees of interaction, but something more discontinuous
> (e.g., either two systems interact or not, or perhaps they 1) do not
> interact, 2) interact via environmental relations (e.g., symbiotic), or 3)
> interact by direct relations (e.g., chimerical)), so maybe this would not be
> a 'continuous' space.
>
> What do you perceive the "relational forcing functions" to be? What comes to
> my mind are constraints.
>
> Regards,
> Tim