Raising Issues

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

> Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 10:01 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: Flogging a dead horse
>
--snip--
>
> I am left with an open question, the answer to which would suggest
> whether the members of this list, under any circumstances, are up to the
> task of conducting an inquiry centered around Judith's own admission
> that we still don't know how to do the modeling called for in the
> Rosenean world view. My question is this: is there any polite way for
> people to offer up conjectured inconsistencies, errors, whatever, in
> Rosen's work such that the immune response is not triggered and a
> healthy inquiry launched?

Jack,

Sure. I think JohnK recently brought up a good example in asking if (or how)
one could justify the anticipatory view of plant adaptations as opposed to a
strictly mechanistic one, in terms of explanatory power in evolutionary
terms and/or some other empirical evidence. In other words, why bother with
the anticipatory view if it adds nothing to the study of plant adaptation
and evolution? I don't recall an "immune response" to that. I hope we can
get back to that topic at some point.

In general, a directly stated question or clearly stated argument (in formal
terms if appropriate), focused on the subject matter, is always the best
approach. Long-winded diatribes, invective, use of poorly-defined or
uncommon terms, continually restating arguments in ever-changing
justifications, and so on, are not going to help one's case. Of course,
simply because someone presents an issue appropriately doesn't always mean
that the issue itself is therefore appropriate. But it helps! Also, as this
is a Rosen forum, there is a built-in bias of focus and worldview here. That
just goes with the goal of this list.

Hmmm, Judith said that we still don't know how to do the modeling called for
in the Rosennean world view? Well, we do know that - at the least - such
modeling includes noncomputable (as well as computable) models and we do
know how to do -some- of that kind of modeling, such as relational models.
No one has done very much with it yet, though, since Rosen. Steve Kercel,
who is on the VCU Rosen list, has done a good amount of investigation of the
application of hypersets as a formalism for models. But, this is but a small
dent in what is needed for modeling the open-ended class of complex systems.
So, I think that whole area of finding/developing formalisms and methods for
noncomputable models is one that could fill a lifetime.

So, I might as well ask: did you have a particular issue you wanted to
raise, or topic you thought was worth discussing?

Regards,
Tim