Re: Raising Issues

[Ayten Aydin <***>]

Among other things, I am doing some studies on "food connection of diseases"
with an aim of helping raise people's consciousness for 'appropriate
eating', as an initial phase of self-responsibilization leading to more
ambitious objectives of consciousness raising step by step, let's say
following Maslow's hierarchical needs. Appropriate eating is at the
bottom/body level, but the most vital considering that nutritional
deficiency, in spite of the abundance of food, is one , perhaps the most
important cause or if corrected a potential cure of many diseases such as
variety of immune-based diseases; environmental-based disorders;
diabetes;heart diseases; chronic fatigue; irritable bowel syndrome; kidney
stones etc. There seems to be  a good correlation between food intolerance
and symptoms. Reliable diagnosis of food tolerance is difficult. This is an
area personal research and testing give better results than those obtained
with advice given by doctors. It however requires a discipline, will power
and responsibility on the part of the person concerned. If successfully
implemented it is killing two birds with one shot: symptom/disorder
disappears by omiting the culprit food and the person concerned
self-responsibilized and his/her consciousness level is raised to a step
higher.  Let's say this is a theory.  I am myself doing a personal research
following a scientific method with good results.  Staying away from certain
food indeed requires a strong will-power. It is to be one's own healer and
requires obeying to this healer. There is some complexity here, I guess.
Could this lend itself to the application of Rosennean Complexity Theory? If
so I may post my simple formula for food testing against symptoms, as a
starter.

I am neither expert/nutritionist nor biologist but I claim to be a good
expert in 'appropriate eating' as every living soul does, I guess.

Ayten Aydin



----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith Rosen" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: Raising Issues


> I concur: let's do something constructive. How about creating, here
amongst
> ourselves on this list, some workable approaches for applying Rosennean
> Complexity Theory to creating better models? I'm game.
>
> One of the areas that my father's work has very important applications for
> is in the field of medicine and medical research. His work isn't reaching
> that audience because of the "packaging" (the category the book is listed
> in, the journals my father published in, and the mathematical language of
> the examples... all are non-medical and hardly "mainstream"). But we all
> have a vested interest in helping the field of medicine get things right.
> So, let's talk about how Rosennean Complexity approaches medical issues,
> first off, and then see about applying the principles that my father
listed
> all through his work as ways to create models based on a theory of
> complexity rather than mechanics.
>
> I'm going to choose two essays out of the most recent book "Essays on
Life,
> Itself: a companion volume" because that one is much more accessible right
> now for people. The first essay is on page 297 and is titled "On the
> Philosophy of Craft". The other one is on page 201 and is titled
"Optimality
> in Biology and Medicine" (the first 14 pages of it are background, and the
> biology and medical aspects start on page 215). If anyone can't get this
> book, let me know.
>
> In "Philosophy of Craft", he (Robert Rosen) says;
> "If one accepts this machine metaphor, which is one of the primary
> underpinnings of contemporary reductionism in biology, then an organism
> becomes a piece of engineering (albeit without an engineer), and a
physician
> is one responsible for the maintenance and proper functioning of this
piece
> of engineering, of a kind nowadays called control engineering."
>
> "If a machine malfunctions (i.e. exhibits pathology) or otherwise deviates
> from nominal behavior, one must seek the causes for the aberration
> (troubleshooting, or diagnostics) and then make the necessary repairs or
> adjustments (therapeutics or prosthesis). Even in the absence of such
> pathology, one must generally maintain the machine in such a way that
> nominal behavior will be preserved (preventive maintenance, or hygiene)."
>
> "The only difference between medicine and other forms of control
engineering
> is that, since we neither built the machine we can an organism (i.e. we
are
> not responsible for its ontology) nor know much about how it actually
works
> (i.e. its epistemology), the physician is much more in the dark than is
his
> technological counterpart. Instead of nominal performance criteria, he
must
> make do with a notion of health, which has proved difficult or impossible
to
> quantify completely. Instead of explicit troubleshooting protocols based
on
> design, he must rely on a restricted set of diagnostic procedures that
rest
> ultimately on experience. The same is true for therapeutic procedures,
most
> of which create further problems (side effects) requiring further
therapies
> (or iatrogenics). About the only advantage the physician has is that his
> "machine" can often heal itself, and it can report to him where it hurts."
>
> "Because of these intrinsic uncertainties, philosophy reenters the
picture,
> even if one accepts the machine metaphor (itself, of course, a philosophy
of
> organism). We must ask questions such as, What is health? or equivalently,
> What is pathology? What is disease? What are symptoms or syndromes? What
is
> a therapy? How can we minimize or eliminate therapeutic side effects?"
>
> "We can frame such questions whether or not we accept the machine
metaphor.
> But the kind of answers we come up with, or even can hope to find, differ
> radically if the machine metaphor itself is wrong. I have come to believe
> the latter, for many reasons. I shall try to describe some of them, in a
> roundabout way, in what follows, and to draw some conclusions pertinent to
> our subject."
>
> On page 306, he writes:
> "For instance, one of the corollaries of simplicity can be stated as
> follows: the ontology of a simple system is entirely subsumed under its
> epistemology. In contemporary biology, for example, it is supposed that
the
> same set of analytic units that supposedly accounts for the operation or
> functioning of an organism also somehow accounts, simultaneously, for its
> fabrication or origin. This is a direct legacy of the machine mataphor:
that
> the same set of parts which allows us to understand the operation of a
> watch, say, also allows us to (re)assemble it, and even more, to diagnose,
> and repair, malfunctions in its operation."
>
> "In complex systems this is no longer the case; in complex systems,
ontology
> and epistemology are generally very different. Our contemporary science,
> which has concentrated almost exclusively on epistemologcial issues,
> accordingly gives very little purchase [insight] on ontological aspects
when
> the two are different. That is why the origin-of-life problem (or for that
> matter, the origin-of-anything problem) is so hard."
>
> "Since medicine in its diagnostic mode involves essentially epistemology,
> whereas in its therapeutic mode it involves ontology, the separation of
the
> two in complex systems becomes a central matter."
>
> "Indeed, the entire concept of craft changes completely when dealing with
> complex systems. For we cannot generically approach them exclusively by
> simple means. There is a sense in which complex systems are infinitely
open;
> just as with any infinite thing, we cannot exhaust there interactive
> capacities by attempting to control their parameters one at a time. In
> particular, the simple control cascades previously mentioned will
generally
> not break off; hence, 'magic bullets' of this character will generally not
> exist."
>
> "On the other hand, we are now free to envision control strategies
involving
> controllers that are themselves complex. On the face of it, there is
nothing
> to prevent such controllers from constituting the desired magic bullets.
In
> fact, for complex systems in general, complex controls offer the only
> reasonable hope."
>
> "It is to early to tell how such ideas will develop in the future. My
> purpose here has been to introduce some of the flavor of the concept of
> complexity, how it pertains to basic biological issues, and how it may
force
> a complete reevaluation, not only of our science, but of our concepts of
art
> and craft as well. Indeed, it may turn out, as it has before, that the
> pursuit of craft may provide the best kind of probe to guide our science
> itself."
>
> Judith
>