Judith,
Re: you recent post...and especially this part:
>> But it is the entire system (the organism) that "does" the work.
I think this is an interesting issue and points out how
hard it can be to identify subsets of a causal circuit or
loop and elevate any one portion of the cycle as more
active or doing more work, vs other subsets that we
de-emphasize and label as passive and doing less of
the work. If the modeling relation is 1) integral to the
life and success of life, and 2) connected in a loop to
the environment and back again, then it seems to me
that it can be said to do just as much of the overall
and complex "work" of living as any other aspect (for
example the more material/physical/recognizable and
partly isolatable functions like metabolism and genetics.
In other words the work of the entire system is not
contained or localized in any fractionable subset but is
spread or distributed or non-local over the whole,
including both the physical/material aspects of the
whole as well as the relational/organizational aspects
of the whole.
Another way to say this is that while the modeling
relation and relational biology (and topological,
configurational, morphological, shape, etc.) issues may
appear only to catalyze or enable work to be done,
like bringing two aspects of a gradient into proximity
may appear only as a passive pre-cursor to the
eventual active harnessing of that gradient to do work,
and if this pre-cursor or set-up or catalysis or enabling
is (again) 1) integral as in required and 2) connected to
environment and back to life again in a loop, then this
catalysis or enabling or modeling relation while perhaps
appearing passive is nonetheless inseparable from the
overall action or work being done. It is necessary if
not sufficient for the work to happen, so it seems to
me equally as active in the collective, complex process.
Dan
Judith Rosen wrote:
John Kineman wrote:
There are numerous examples of how models are not passive, but have
causal effects on natural systems. It is RR's major point and if it were
not intended this way he would not have written so extensively and
strongly about "internal predictive models" IN organisms. If they don't
do anything there, why bother with them?
The models in organisms are a non-separable aspect of the system as a whole.
The models DO have causal effects, which is why my father postulated they
must exist. But it is the entire system (the organism) that "does" the work.
You are right that he wrote extensively about model-based systems that
operate via anticipatory control principles or mechanisms. However, he also
cautioned not to let yourself begin to view these "models" as "things" (like
a set of organs). The word "model" was intended to refer to a set of
functional relationships that are built into the system itself somehow. As
such, the anticipatory model/s are internal/integral to the organization of
the system but do not exist separately in a material way.
snip
The existence of causal effects from interaction with models is not the same
thing as "models actively causing effects". I think this is an important
distinction. Biology is rife with such causal effects as organisms express
the interactive relationship between their internal models and their
external environment. The "internal predictive models" my father referred to
serve a functional purpose. Among other things, they give living systems a
terrific edge in maintaining their organizational health (equilibrium) over
time in a changing environment.