Re: Howard's challenge

[John Kineman <***>]

Howard,

Some specific comments below to add to my general ones reminding
everyone of the "commensurability" issue, which I think we all have
addressed inadequately. In a sense what I see is a classical
"equivocation error" as defined in philosophy (not meant as a slur - a
technical term). I see the same error repeated by those investigating
Rosen views, by the way, so its not a one-way criticism. This occurs in
the following way.

Howard Pattee wrote:

> ..."Bob proposed as a measure of complexity the number of inequivalent models necessary for adequate understanding of systems."
This is an epistemological measure or criterion for detection of
complexity. It is not a definition of its cause.

> "That’s why we like Aristotle. His causes are simply answers to four different classes of questions: What is the house made of? Who built the house? Who designed the house? Why do you want a house?
If we shift to discussing causes, we are no longer talking about a
measure of complexity, but causes of it. If one's logic switches between
these epistemological and ontological meanings within one logical
sequence, that is very prone to produce what is called an "equivocation
error" in logic.

I would also like to suggest that another mischaracterization is going
on here, as in the following:

> ..."Rosen and his followers as represented on this list..."
Each of us in the sciences on this list are researchers and
practitioners in our own right. We are not following a religion or
belief system. Whom do we characterize as the "followers of Einstein?"
Many have read and commented on his work and applied it in their own
way, and developed it further, but these are scientists who found the
ideas valuable in their own work. We speak of "neo-Darwinists" but
generally that is a pejorative term used to characterize a group
following a particular philosophy that one is criticizing. The above
language is often used loosly, but I would suggest some care in
over-using it here, lest its use be taken as a slight on our
professionalism and open mindedness.

In the following:

> There is some grudging acceptance that, well, reductionism is not so bad but only if based on or accompanied with Rosenean models. I never hear that Rosen’s views are only valuable if accompanied by reductionist models.
I would say that neither is a requirement. Each has its own value.
Comparison is another exercise, also with value. The exception, as you
pointed out (after Bohr), is that we are probably constrained to discuss
and report our ideas in classical terms, merely because we are ourselves
constructed with sensory systems that perceive the world this way. This
is a matter of terms of reference, however, not correlating theory
structures.

> I’m trying to get across the idea that modeling complex systems should not be a competitive sport. I know it is an easy trap to fall into, egos being what they are, but if you try to simply compete with reductionist models or the common sense of the likes of von Neumann you have already lost.
All of science is and has been a competitive sport. Declaring a winner
before the event is not a good way to address the issue of competition,
nor is it good science. However, there is such a thing as "healthy
competition" where one understands and respects the other teams.

> I think we need to acknowledge the fact that other people’s models may indeed answer their questions. If you want to ask different questions and their models don’t answer your questions, you have no reason to criticize their models. The same goes for different definitions of the symbols and words, like constraint, complexity, causality, etc., used in different models.
>
> Am I getting through to anyone?
Yes, I would make the same points on both sides of the fence. But what I
think is missed here is that the strongest dogma has come from the
traditionalists and continues to do so. Those working with Rosennean
assumptions are few and not very influential, and strong criticism of
their doing of this at all makes them tend to feel polarized. Were I
unable to resort to the philosophy of scinece and epistemology to defend
exploration of these views, I would probably be unable to repress an
egoistic or emotional response. The resistance is particularly bad among
physics who have allowed themselves to believe, and have convinced
society to believe as well, that they are the only ones who understand
how to approach reality at a deep level, even though the varioius views
of reality that have resulted cover the widest expanse of fantasy
imaginable from a mechanistic view. Those who begin by saying "its not a
machine" should have some free reign to explore that. Those of us
studying more real systems than most of physics studies are discovering
that there are depths physics has not explored and will only do so in a
very cumbersome manner for other fields. In other words, it appears
unlikely to me that we will get a useful physical theory of social order
and that to attempt to produce one would be a hugely non-parsimonious
way to proceed. The hope that physical theory will eventually close this
gap to ever smaller dimensions is fine for physics and just what it
should do, but it is not fine for other fields that need practical
answers much sooner and thus need to base theory on a more complete
basis. Additionally, the fact that proceeding in this attempt then
reveals implications for physics should not be surprising, nor should it
be resisted; it is evidence that the new field has indeed discovered
something. Regarding Von Neumann (whom I admit I need to read more about
sometime), it is not at all uncommon for two approaches to converge on a
similar idea and to get resolved down the road in a subsequent
comparison exercise. For that to work well, both views need to be fully
developed in their own right to see if indeed there are any substantive
differences. Proclaiming no difference at the outset defeats the
scientific exercise.