Re: causing trouble

[Howard Pattee <***>]

John explains:
The operative question becomes why is one a
simple relationship and the other a complex one? A possible clue, in
this view, might be that in the physical example the numbers you
abstract about the system don't feedback any causal relationships. If
they did, then the system would be complex.

HP: Thanks. Your explanation clarified your meaning of ontology.

I?m thinking in quantum mechanics a measurement of the most elementary system does change 
the state of the system. That would mean the simplest system can be seen as complex, but 
we ignore this in macroscopic physics thereby making complex systems seem simple.

Howard

>
> From: John Kineman <***>
> Date: 2004/04/16 Fri PM 09:57:29 EDT
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: causing trouble
>
> Howard,
>
> The ontology in your example would recognize you, the scientist,
> abstracting numbers. That whole relationship defines the ontology. A
> similar ontology (in kind, not content) can be said to exist for any
> natural system. An organism thus is seen most basically as a
> relationship between functions and the material realization of those
> functions. Likewise your planets are material realizations of your
> abstraction of them, but the relationship is less interesting because it
> commutes. So, there is a big difference in these two systems, the first
> exhibits surprising complex behaviors, the second commutes fairly well.
> The point is to find a common ontology that can deal well with the
> complex example, since it cannot be adequately handled by a simpler
> ontology that one might presume looking only at physical examples (i.e.,
> the traditional view). The operative question becomes why is one a
> simple relationship and the other a complex one? A possible clue, in
> this view, might be that in the physical example the numbers you
> abstract about the system don't feedback any causal relationships. If
> they did, then the system would be complex. In other words if you always
> ensured that the number of planets fit some model of yours, and
> destroyed or created planets to make that true, and if the model changed
> depending on the number of planets, then the planet-scientist system
> would be behaving in a complex and unpredictable manner, like organisms do.
>
> JJK
>
>
> Howard Pattee wrote:
>
> >John,
> >
> >Could you explain again what you mean by ?the modeling relationship taken 
> >ontologically??
> >Can all cases of a modeling relation be taken ontologically? An example would help. 
> >Take a very simple case of measurement, say counting. On the natural (left) side I 
> >have the planets. On the right side I have the integers. By some protocol I find a 
> >one-to-one matching and I end up with a symbol (an integer) that corresponds to these 
> >objects in nature.
> >
> >I can then say that I know (epistemologically) the number of planets in the solar 
> >system.
> >
> >How do you want me to view this ontologically?
> >
> >Howard
> >
> >
>
> --
> © 2004 John J. Kineman
> all rights reserved
>