Re: models - branch fromf GM discussion

[John Kineman <***>]

Howard, I have some ideas about this. See below:

Howard Pattee wrote:

> I have never been clear what else, besides irritation, Rosen had in mind by calling physics “impoverished” beyond the view that physical laws are simply inadequate or incomplete for describing the essential character of life (or even the function of measurement), a view that many physicists have argued for many years.
Incompleteness is the first step, but despite the statements by
physicists about this there is still abmiguity as to whether the
discipline (physics) can and should be complete. Many think it can and
should, and that is the dominant view or at least the most highly
publicized one ("theory of everything," "fabric of the cosmos" etc.).
There is a tremendous amount of hubris in physics about its grasp of the
basis for everything and on that score my own opinion is that Rosen went
easy on them - but that is neither of our main points; rather to find
the point of departure. Your question is a good one despite how we
evaluate physics. I have two approaches to answering it:

1. Given incompleteness of physics, what other sciences exist? Of course
just asking the question this way hints at Rutherford's ultimate
dismissal of everything other than physics, and the first answer must be
that there are many other disciplines in science besides physics. There
is chemistry, geology, sociology, psychology, cybernetics, agronomy,
botany, taxonomy, engineering, business management, international
affairs, policy science (not too sure that's a science yet), etc. etc. -
a long list of "ologies." Now we have a more introspective question
about how we're thinking: Why is answering with this obvious list not
the obvious answer to your question? I'm getting at the presumption that
we're automatically talking about a physical system when there is no
reason to presume that. The point is that each field of study may
discover new laws for phenomena scaled and defined by certain views in
that discipline by which they appear most parsimonious and useable, and
that these new laws or principles are not wholly reducible to physics or
other disciplines, and yet constitute "reality" just as much as do
systems viewed materially.

2. Emerging from Rosen's study of biological complexity is a model that
could be taken as a general model (incomplete in its own way) for many
aspects of reality bridging many disciplines, including physics. If we
do so (as I am prone to do) we get a different picture of reality than
is common in most physical science disciplines, but is quite common in
some parts of ecology, sociology, psychology, 2nd order cybernetics,
information science, and other system fields involving mental or
informational concepts in a non-trivial way. That view reifies
"functions" and treats them causally. The usefulness of doing that, and
its limitations, are a matter of trying it, just as the usefulness of
any other world-view change (for example in physics, but not limited to
physics) has also had to be explored before its value or limitations
could be determined. In this case, however, the value is clear in many
current fields, for example in ecology and evolution, which is what I
tend to write about most.

Now the heart of the matter: Should we then revise physics with this
view???? My comments earlier were to indicate that it is a bit circular
to claim both that physics should be modified in this way and that
physics is incomplete in this way. Clearly we must be talking about
current vs potential physics to make both statements. Nevertheless, if
the more radical view were adopted, that physics should be re-written on
this "new" basis, I think one would quickly find that most of current
physics would be unchanged. It would be an obvious special case of a
functional relationship. Furthermore, so much of current physics would
be unchanged that for that part of it one would feel that the "new" view
is little more than adopting new jargon. However, as I tried to test
with space-time applications, in a very simplistic way, thinking
differently in this way can lead to different models of, say the cosmos,
and specific testible predictions, so importing this view into physics
is not entirely innert, in my view.

Then, finally, the question arises if "new physics" modified in a
Rosennean sense would include all that Rosen foresaw for biology. I
suggest it would not, for reasons of parsimony within each discipline.
There will always be better and worse ways of looking at phenomomena
that are unique to one's discipline - that's what defines disciplines.

I think that's the best I can do in attempting to answer this question.

> Rosen agrees with physics in the basic Hertzian epistemological conditions for an “objective” model, i.e., the commutation or congruence of physical and inferential entailments. Rosen says, “In fact, the congruences (modeling relations) which can be established between them are, I would argue, the essential stuff of science.”
>
> Rosen also agrees that a clear boundary must be chosen between the model and the system being modeled (the epistemic cut). Rosen says, “Obliterating the boundary would leave us with the entire universe; either all environment and no system, or all system and no environment. And we recall that, as von Neumann argued, such a boundary must be placed somewhere, ‘if the method is not to proceed vacuously.’”
>
> Rosen also agrees with physics that a problem arises when we try to construct a model of a system that contains both physical and inferential entailments, measurement being the paradigm example in physics. In other words, when we want to “objectify” the observer or the measurement by moving the epistemic cut to the right we have problems. Again, I quote Rosen:
>
> “From what has been said above, the ‘objectivizing’ of the observer (i.e., pulling him entirely into the public, external world) amounts to replacing the boundary between subjective and objective by an ordinary boundary between a system and its environment, both now in the external world (on the left). Moreover, this must be done in such a way that what, formerly, was (subjective) inferential entailment in the observer now coincides with causal entailment in the ‘objective’ system that has replaced him. At the very least, there must be no less causal entailment in the system than there was inferential entailment in the subjective observer.”
Can you tell me where this is from? This is the precise statement I have
been looking for to justify the ontological approach I am taking, for
example in response #2 above. It is a clear statement of the ontological
use of the modeling relation. Bravo!

> This is the condition that physical law description alone cannot satisfy because inferential systems are symbol systems governed by local syntax over which universal physical laws have no necessary effects. It is generally recognized that physical laws cannot generate or cause symbolic language structures including mathematics. Nor can symbols generate or cause physical laws. It is just this disjoint character of laws and symbols that stimulates the field of biosemiotics as an essential complement to biochemistry.
Yes, precisely. I agree.

> Obviously Rosen also agrees with physicists that physical laws cannot satisfy this condition. He expresses it in his own terms, namely, that this condition is “inconsistent with the tenets of mechanism” as Rosen defines mechanism. (All quotes above from Chapt. 5, Essays on LI)
Yes, which is why I questioned the idea of a "new physics" as implying
physics could be expanded to include what's happening in these cases.

> So far I do not see a significant difference of opinion.
I havn't seen any move in physics towards an ontological view of
functions, but I don't watch that closely. Is there one? It seems to me
the discipline is still primarily looking for syntactical ways of
explaining functions, e..g, 5 (or more) dimensional string theory in
which all the events are presumed to be calculable.

> The only unresolved Rosen issue, then, is what aspects of physics does he think require change?
Again, I think we can't have it both ways, i.e., argue that physics is
incomplete AND argue for its expansion. The proper role of physics may
be to keep detailing models of calculable physical phenomena. But since
so much of the tradition in physics has been to claim that it is
fundamental to all reality, that is the part I think RR was
instinctively referring to that needs to change. Physics does not give
us an accurate view of reality itself, as so often claimed, but a
material view of reality that has certain utilities.

> Rosen’s primary assumption is that because physical laws are inadequate to model life there must be something fundamentally wrong with physics. Rosen says, “For then the muteness of physics arises from its fundamental inapplicability to biology and betokens the most profound changes in physics itself.” (LI, p. 13)
Again, same issue. Not all physicists make the same statements. Some
claim it discusses the fundamental nature of reality on which all else
is built. For those people, a fundamental change is required, because
they are making fundamental claims. Otherwise the inapplicability to
biology is just a limitation of the discipline; however, importing that
limitation back into physics in the form of an ontological
structure-function complementarity could provide some useful ways of
thinking about phenomena at the edge of physics, particularly phenomena
dealing with system origins. Personally I think it is much more sensible
than Everett Worlds, for example. I think the "profound changes" are
mostly for atomic theory and cosmology, as these run into the
singularities associated with system origins.

So, to summarize, what I think the mechanistic view in physics does not
deal with adequately is system origins, or origin of novel events. this
can be seen as simply a characteristic and limitation of physics, or as
a need for a new way of looking at that problem. Rosen makes both
statements, and I agree the combination of both statements out of
context is confusing.

> What is Rosen’s basis for this assumption? Why would we want to change successful physical models because they do not describe complex systems they were never designed to model?
I really don't think he said that or implied it at all. In fact he said
what works we keep. He was talking about adding to the part where the
theory doesn't work, then asking secondarily if that had any fundamental
implications for the way the think about reality. That issue can be
summarized by the question, is it a physical reality in which life
emerges, or a complex and in some primitive way, living reality in which
material systems arise. This question is basically philsophical or
metaphysical (in the scientific sense), but very important because so
much of other science and humanities are based not on Maxwell's or
Newton's or Einstein's equations, but the picture of nature they imply.

> Bohr made this point long ago: “We do not use quantum mechanics to describe tea parties.” We do not use celestial dynamics to describe cells.
Yes same point, but what Bohr did about it was to propose fundamental
uncertainty. The relational model explains where that uncertainty comes
from.

> Let me be clear. I am all in favor of developing in more detail Rosennian models of biological systems. My question is: What is the purpose of these continuing gratuitous complaints about physics?
I hope I've made that clear in the above. I've pointed out distinctions
in perspective and interpretation of physics and stated what I think is
new, which can be taken as either "something else" if all are agreed
that we are not discussing any concept of fundamental reality, or must
be taken as a change in world view if we are. To me this point is
crystal clear and it really surprises me that it is so hard for physical
scientists to grasp. On the other hand it was extremely hard for me, as
a physical scientist, to grasp for 20 years, so there you have it. It
requires an "aha." Then suddenly it is all quite simple and one can move
on to doing something about it besides dismissing one work as a
redundancy. The redundancy dissapears once you see the distinction.

> No doubt some physicists need “humbling” but that is another problem (probably more difficult that creating life!).
Well, right; we all need that.

> Physics will not “cease to be physics.” If a new science is needed for biological models, that is more than enough of a problem. Trying to discredit physics as well as reductionist models along the way is not only a waste of effort but also counterproductive public relations.
That's really a different matter that I honestly don't believe I,
certainly, am trying to do nor that Rosen was trying to do. Discrediting
physics "as a description of reality" is the issue there; and it is
quite clear that reality claims are made and are extremely formative for
people's basic concepts in many other fields. Discrediting the reality
claim is an important thing to do, I would say.

John K.