Re: Question

[Howard Pattee <***>]

Here is a question that I suspect will elicit several opinions:

Rashevsky?s relational biology is the study of life at a level of abstraction that does 
not address any particular material physical realization of life, but looks at its most 
general logical organization. Rosen contrasts relational biology with reductionist 
biology in the following words:
?In any case, I can epitomize the reductionist approach to organization in general, and 
life in particular, as follows: throw away the organization and keep the underlying 
matter. ?The relational alternative to this says the exact opposite, namely: when 
studying an organized material system, throw away the matter and keep the underlying 
organization.? (LI, p. 119)

Langton?s and other?s view of Artificial Life is that they also want to get beyond 
particular material realizations of life. Langton says:
 ?Of course, the principle assumption made in Artificial Life is that the ?logical form? 
of an organism can be separated from its material basis of construction, and that 
?aliveness? will be found to be a property of the former, not of the latter.? (Artificial 
Life, Langton, ed., Addison-Wesley, 1989, p.11.)

Question: What substantial philosophical differences do you see here, if any. Of course, 
the actual research programs are quite different.

Howard