Re: resolving trouble

[Howard Pattee <***>]

John K?s suggestion: Think first how we can agree. Think last, or not at all, how we can 
disagree. No one's honor will be soiled by this.

HP: Here is a starting list of (disputable) agreements from my previous posts:

Areas of Rosen?s agreement (or at least areas of no inconsistency)
with von Neumann:
(1) the basic modeling conditions expressed by Hertz (and accepted by most other 
physicists);
(2) the inadequacy of physical laws to explain or model the essentials of life;
(3) the irreducibility (unentailment) of measurement (coding) and model-building itself;
(4) the subtle and complex difficulties of modeling life by any purely formal computation.

with Langton and many Artificial Lifers:
(1) the value of abstract relational models (as contrasted with biochemical models);
(2) the value of alternative realizations of life (other than what exists).

With Biosemiotics:
(1) the importance of information and communication in organisms as distinguished from 
the physical interactions of energy and matter.

On the other hand, science would get nowhere without Cartesian doubt and the disputation 
that must follow. It is not the disagreement that is the problem, it is only when it is 
taken personally. I disputed with Bob for 40 years while maintaining a most enjoyable 
friendly relationship. We would have been bored and irritable if forced to talk only 
about our areas of agreement.

Howard


http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/pattee/
http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~rocha/pattee/