Re: models - branch fromf GM discussion

[John M <***>]

JohnK,
interesting argumentation.
I found HP's par. perfectly valid, when he wrote:
> >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.’”<<

I could not satisfy myself with an impossibility of finding a better
solution for "no system". I tried the way to widen the "yes - no"
and within that: quantitative strength considerational limited
boundary-characterization into qualitative differentiation of the qualia in
effecting the interconnections (- I did not say: levels, that would call for
quantizing at least a hierarchy).  In translating such idea into my 'network
of networks' metaphor I ventured into a
QUALITATIVE efficiency-difference between connectivities. My first (I
suppose inadequate) wording can be seen on my website:
http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes/Influence.htm  .

Physics cannot handle (compare) qualitatively different 'forces' existing in
diverse systems of 'measurement'. Cannot convert a legal inadequacy into
joules. The beauty of love into ergs.
However the world includes those "non-physics-contained" qualia as well.
Life (whatever it may be) includes them as well. "Boiological complexity"
maybe not, since it is within the "bio" limited model and its boundaries.

I asked on another list, where some people refuted everything contrastable
to Peirce's ideas:
"Should we close the book of science with Peirce, (2nd part of the XIX.c.)
and everything humans come up with after him is deemed to be wrong?
Same here.

Cheers

JohnM


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Kineman" <***>
To: <***>Rosen says, Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 2:04
PM
Subject: Re: models - branch fromf GM discussion


> 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.