Re: Relational space

[James N Rose <***>]

It seems to me that RR struggled to deal with existing
concepts and yet re-organize them in a different way
that would be more complete and accomodating of aspects
-as of that time - unaccounted for in the pantheon of
notions.

One of the ways to do that is to bend or focus or expand
the applications of the notions understood, re-arrange them
in more pleasing or complete ways, give them broader relevance.

Such as .. considering the memes 'distance' and 'between'.

In the simplest occurances they could be considered identical
and isomorphic.  But on closer examination they are actually
homeomorphic and distinctive though similar.

A distance is an empirical measure of 'separation', the amount
of space 'between' loci.

It can be identified by a spatial measure; it can be identified
by a temporal measure (rate of encounter/accounting);; these
measures now being understood as "relative", as per conditions of
process also.

Then there is the topological notion of 'between', which has
a -different- but related meme of 'relative'.  Here the aspect
is 'juxta-position'. On a continuous closed line such as a
circle, which of 3 given loci is -uniquely- "between" the
other two?  and, does distance or between come into existence
only after the loci do and are existentially specifiable, or
must distance/between have an existential pre-instantiated
presence -before- specific loci are locatable in the
instantiated domain?

I don't know where RR was headed with his musings,
but I can relate to his wondering about such things.
My own answer has been to totally rearrange many
empirical memes of observation and deduction in use
by standard science. Similar to RR's re-forming the
word/meme 'evolution'.

In point of fact, such a technique is the only way
open to achieving an eventual UFT or TOE.  Which is
the final coming to terms with model/reality.

James
03/20/04




Howard Pattee wrote:
>
> I am quite sure that in the context of contrasting physics and biology Bob
> took a very broad view of measurement including any pattern recognition or
> perception of natural events. Here is one of Bob?s typical thought-
> provocations from Anticipatory Systems:
>
> [Rosen, AS, p. 319]: ?Perhaps the most unassailable principle of
> theoretical physics asserts that the laws of nature must be the same for
> all observers. By this is meant that the laws must be invariant to the
> position and state of motion of all observers . . . but if the observers
> themselves are not identical; i.e., equipped with precisely the same
> meters, there is no reason to expect their descriptions of the universe to
> be the same.?
> [snip 5 lines]
> ?In an important sense, biology depends in an essential way on the
> proliferation of inequivalent observers; it can indeed be regarded as
> nothing other than the study of populations of inequivalent observers and
> their interactions. These remarks lend a profound significance to the view
> that biology is the science of mutability; i.e., the science of error.?
>
> Note however, that this quote is from Rosen?s pre-Halifax era when he was
> still engaged with colleagues and students. As Judith pointed out by her
> quote, evolution is an essential concept in Anticipatory Systems. But there
> is a total change of view in Life Itself:
>
> [Rosen, LI, p. 255] ?Ever more insistently over the past century, and never
> more so than today, we hear the argument that biology is evolution; that
> living things instantiate evolutionary processes rather than life; and
> ironically, that these processes are devoid of entailment, immune to
> natural law, and hence outside science completely. To me it is easy to
> conceive of life, and hence biology, without evolution. But not of
> evolution without life. Thus it is that the word ?evolution? has hardly
> been mentioned in the preceding pages.?
>
> Howard