FW: [ROSEN] Bob Rosen's models, sensory perception, and more

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

To all,

Sorry - I have been away from the list for many days now, due to some other priorities. I hope to be back to it in another day or so. In the meantime, Judith asked me to forward a post (see below) since she was having some technical difficulties getting it to post from her temporary computer.

 

Also, welcome to two new list members: Dr. Ion Baianu and Leif Perrson!! :)

 

Regards,

Tim

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Judith Rosen [mailto:***
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 12:23 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Bob Rosen's models, sensory perception, and more

> Tim------ could you post this to the list for me? It keeps getting 
>   bounced when I try to post it for some reason, citing "enriched text 
>   attachment" or something.....

Hello Dr. Baianu! It's a 
lovely surprise to see a couple emails from you in my email "in box" this 
morning. 

The trips my father made "behind the iron curtain" were some of 
his favorite travel experiences, and were the source of some of his most 
entertaining travel stories. His run-ins with the KGB and the CIA whenever he 
was traveling to Russia or East Germany were particularly riveting. His ability 
to speak both German and Russian tended to make such governmental bodies want to 
either recruit him or suspect him of being recruited. And, when he turned down 
the "gracious" invitation by the CIA to spy while behind the iron curtain, their 
graciousness turned to active suspicion that he had perhaps accepted someone 
ELSE'S gracious invitation (was recruited)... He tended to view them all as cut 
from the same cloth, namely; a variation on the Keystone Cops, the Marx 
Brothers, or the Three Stooges. Such travels were extreme eye-openers for my 
father, who was forever a Brooklyn boy at heart, born and raised in Brownsville, 
Brooklyn (NYC). [In fact, having grown up in a very rough neighborhood, he often 
said that instead of sending underage criminal offenders to reform school or 
juvenile detention, he believed more could be achieved via a field trip to some 
of the countries behind the iron curtain-- seeing what lack of freedom was 
really like could straighten the vast majority of these fledgling hoodlums 
out.]

Romania was particularly interesting to my father, in its beauty 
and its unusual history. Then, again, most of the areas he visited in 
then-Communist bloc countries had astonishing riches that "Westerners" rarely 
got a chance to see or learn about. His hosts were universally wonderful. He 
told a story about a young scientist in East Germany who kept apologizing for 
her "poor English", which my father said was remarkably fluent and not "poor" at 
all. When he told her so, she said, "Ah, but you don't know what I WISHED to 
say." That quote, and the sentiment behind it, have stayed with me, resonating 
many, many times over the years. Right now, my littlest daughter can only speak 
to us via sign language, although she can hear perfectly and is very bright. My 
sign language capability is lagging behind hers, and her sign language 
capability is lagging far behind what her vocabulary requires. It's a 
frustration that brings that story very much to the forefront of my mind. I 
often wonder what Kyrie' would say, if she could convey whatever she WISHED to 
say.

George Karreman was an interesting fellow. I met the family when I 
was 14 during a summer stint at a symposium Dad attended (which families also 
attended) at a university in Quebec. The Karreman's then came to Nova Scotia and 
visited us for a couple weeks a year or two later, after we had moved to Halifax 
from Buffalo (in 1976). My family stayed at their house in Bala Cynwyd, 
Philadelphia, for part of the summer when I was 17. [They had two good-looking 
sons, which was of interest to ME, at the time.] George had a fascinating habit 
of beginning to tell some story, but getting sidetracked by every single side 
issue that came to mind in the process, which was almost a never-ending 
progression...or so it seemed to me as I sat there, trying to follow it. His 
sons responded to this (saving me) by saying, "DAD... you're RAMBLING again." 
George was the one who was the subject of the quote, originally by Ycas, I 
think, but repeated by my father: "Having a conversation with him is like trying 
to solve an equation with more left parentheses than right parentheses." But 
George was also a very gentle and likable man. I don't know anything whatsoever 
about his work, though-- that was before I became interested in the peripheral 
aspects of my father's professional life.

Thank you for your kind words, 
upon discovering that my father had passed away. I will forward your email to 
the rest of the family and I'm sure they will appreciate it as much as I 
do.

Cheers,
Judith


> Before following Ms. Judith Rosen's interesting comments about 
>   Bob Rosen's work, please allow me to introduce myself to this group and 
>   threads:
>
> Bob Rosen and I had a long and fruitful correspondence by mail 
>   while I was completing my MS studies on "Theoretical and Experimental Models 
>   in Carcinogenesis." , while studying both in the School of Physics and the 
>   Biophysics Dept. of the School of Medicine at Bucharest University,
> between 
>   1965 and 1969., then during the 'Cold War', I was behind the Iron Curtain, 
>   sufferring from the restrictions typical of that era. Bob
> Rosen and Nicolas 
>   Rashevsky have both 'melted through' the Iron Courtin a communication line to 
>   help me and my colleagues be part of the
> great progress with estabishing 
>   the programmatic fundamentals of Complex Biological Systems, or as they were 
>   called then "Organismic Sets"
> by Nicolas Rashevsky (then at Ann Arbor in 
>   Michigan) , and later "Metabolic-Replication-Systems" introduced by Bob Rosen, 
>   or "Organismic Supercategories" in my own contributions to this new and 
>   growing field. As it happened, Bob Rosen was able to come and visit with us in 
>   Bucharest and at the famous Sigmarinen's Pelesh Castle at Predeal in Romania 
>   in 1969. Nicolas Rashevsky then kindly invited me , and made it possible to 
>   participate at the Mathematical Biophysics Symposium at Toledo, in Ohio, in 
>   1970, where of course I met again Bob Rosen, and made a new friend ,George 
>   Kareeman with whom I remained long time friends through correspondence, after 
>   having his family in Philadelphia.
>
> Last week, after a long 'struggle 
>   for survival' of more than twenty years, I was trying again to get in touch 
>   with Bob Rosen, whom I knew to have moved to Dalhousie in Canada sometime in 
>   the 90's, and learned with great shock and pain of his passing in 1998.  
>   This is my first chance of offerring my belated-  but most sincerely felt 
>   condolences-- to both his family and close friends. At the same time, I had 
>   this pain doubled by learning also that George Karreman--who was also a 
>   very,very close friend--has passed away in 1997. Last time that George and I 
>   spoke on the phone in the US was in 1996. I joined the stuff in Physical 
>   Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1980, and met for the 
>   second time the then US remaining Mathematical Biology 'board' with Herbert 
>   Landahl at its helm in 1984 at a SIAM meeting and dinner. At that time, I gave 
>   two talks on "Natural Transformations in Relational and Molecular Biology." , 
>   and another on "Molecular-Set-Variable Models in Molecular Biology.", both 
>   relevant to the discussion here. The full texts will be available again on the 
>   web shortly on my web sites. Till then, I am listing here several of the 
>   papers that are relevant to this discussion, and that I am working to help 
>   continue what Nicolas Rashevsky and Robert Rosen started,
> and  help 
>   'keep the flame burning.'  As the 'youngest member' of the Relational 
>   Biology group in the early 70s and later 80s and 90s, I hope to
> be able to 
>   help others as Nicolas Rashevsky, Bob Rosen and George Karreman helped me to 
>   develop my 'tree branch" of the Relational Biology and Complex Systems 
>   Biological Dynamics. Briefly, in 1985 to 1987 also had some very helpful and 
>   far-reaching interactions with Matthew
> Witten--who was also helped by Bob 
>   Rosen-- to develop his own approach to Observation Repeatability in Biological 
>   Systems and Medicine.
> Thus came about a substantial review , also listed 
>   here, printed with Matthew's help in 1987, dealing with Computer modelling and 
>   Automata
> Theory in Biology and Medicine. Three important problems close to 
>   Robert Rosen's interests were there discussed in some detail: the
> algebraic 
>   construction of Metabolic-Replication (Repair) Systems,Computer Models of 
>   Carcinogenesis, and Computer Simulation and
> 'Computability' of 
>   Complex  Biological System Dynamics. This substantial review ( ~60 
>   printed pages, 41 figures and 300 selected references)
> will aslo shortly 
>   become available at my uiuc web-site. Here follows the promised list of 
>   references up to 1987, although I am sure it still
> requires several 
>   additions, including many of the relevant Bob Rosen's and George Karreman's 
>   and also Nicolas Rashevsky's papers.
>
> Hope you will also be able to add 
>   this information in your Robert Rosen site archives, etc.
>
> With best 
>   regards and my very best wishes to Bob Rosen's family and friends, Rosenian 
>   Group members, and former students and coworkers,
>
> Ion  C. Baianu, 
>   PhD,
> Professor
> University of Illinois at Urbana
> Urbana, 
>   IL.61801
> USA
>
> Tel . No. 217-333-4442
> Telefax: 
>   217-244-2455
> :
> :
>
> categories: APPLICATIONS to: Automata, 
>   Biological Systems,  Dynamics, Genetic and Metabolic Networks, Human 
>   Cognitive Systems, Quantum Computers, Quantum Gravity, Quantum Groups, Quantum 
>   Automata,  Bioinformatics
>
> Cc: < 
>   ***>
>
>
> Applications of the Theory of 
>   Categories, Functors and Natural Transformations, N-categories, Abelian or 
>   otherwise to:
> Automata Theory/ Sequential Machines, Bioinformatics, 
>   Complex Biological Systems /Complex Systems Biology, Computer Simulations and 
>   Modeling, Dynamical Systems , Quantum Dynamics, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum 
>   Groups,Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT), Quantum Automata, Cognitive 
>   Systems, Graph Transformations, Logic, Mathematical Modeling, etc.
>
> Note: This is a first 
>   attempt at generating a Categorical Incunabula of the development of 
>   applications of the Theory of Categories, Functors and
> Natural 
>   Transformations (next... pushouts, pullbacks, presheaves, sheaves, Categories 
>   of sheaves, Topos.., n-valued Logic, N-categories/
> higher dimensional 
>   algebra,Homotopy theory, etc.)  to an entire range of: physical, 
>   engineering, informatics, Bioinformatics, Computer simulations, Mathematical 
>   Biology -areas that are utilizing or developing categorical formalisms for 
>   studying complex problems and phenomena
> appearing in various types of 
>   dynamical systems, engineering,computing, bioinformatics, biological and/or 
>   social networks.
>
> 1. Rosen, R. 1958. The Representation of 
>   Biological Systems from the Standpoint of the Theory of Categories."  
>   (of sets). Bull. Math. Biophys.
> 20: 317-341.
>
> 2. 
>   Rosen, Robert. 1964. Abstract Biological Systems as Sequential Machines, Bull. 
>   Math. Biophys., 26: 103-111; 239-246; 27:11-14;28:141-148.
>
> 3. Arbib, M. 
>   1966. Categories of (M,R)-Systems. Bull. Math. Biophys., 28: 
>   511-517.
>
> 4. Cazanescu, D. 1967. On the Category of Abstract Sequential 
>   Machines. Ann. Univ. Buch., Maths & Mech. series, 16 
>   (1):31-37.
>
> 5.  Rosen, Robert. 1968. On Analogous Systems. Bull. 
>   Math. Biophys., 30: 481-492.
>
> 6. Baianu, I.C. and Marinescu, M. 1968. 
>   Organismic Supercategories:I. Proposals for a General Unitary Theory of 
>   Systems. Bull. Math. Biophys., 30: 625-635.
>
> 7. Comorosan,S. and Baianu, 
>   I.C. 1969. Abstract Representations of Biological Systems in 
>   Supercategories.  Bull. Math. Biophys., 31: 59-71.
>
> 8. Baianu, I. 
>   1970. Organismic Supercategories: III. On Multistable Systems. Bull. Math. 
>   Biophys., 32: 539-561.
>
> 9. Baianu, I. 1971. Organismic Supercategories 
>   and Qualitative Dynamics of Systems.  Bull. Math. Biophys., 33: 
>   339-354.
>
> 10. Baianu, I. 1971. Categories, Functors and Automata Theory. 
>   The 4th  Intl. Congress LMPS, August-Sept. 1971.
>
> 11. Baianu, I. 
>   and Scripcariu, D. 1973. On Adjoint Dynamical Systems.  Bull. Math. 
>   Biology., 35: 475-486.
>
> 12. Rosen, Robert. 1973. On the Dynamical 
>   realization of (M,R)-Systems. Bull. Math. Biology., 35:1-10.
>
> 13. 
>   Baianu, I. 1973. Some Algebraic Properties of (M,R)-Systems in Categories. 
>   Bull. Math. Biophys, 35: 213-218.
>
> 14. Baianu, I. and Marinescu, M. 
>   1974. A Functorial Construction of (M,R)-Systems. Rev. Roum. Math. Pures et 
>   Appl., 19: 389-392.
>
> 15. Baianu, I.C. 1977. A Logical Model of Genetic 
>   Activities in Lukasiewicz Algebras: The Non-Linear Theory., Bull. Math. 
>   Biol.,39:249-258.
>
> 16. Baianu, I.C. 1980. Natural Transformations of 
>   Organismic Structures. Bull.Math. Biology, 42:431-446.
>
> 17. Warner, M. 
>   1982. Representations of (M,R)-Systems by Categories of Automata., Bull. Math. 
>   Biol., 44:661-668.
>
> 18. Baianu, I.C.1983. Natural Transformations Models 
>   in Molecular Biology. SIAM Natl. Meeting, Denver, CO, USA.
>
> 19. Baianu, 
>   I.C. 1984. A Molecular-Set-Variable Model of Structural and Regulatory 
>   Activities in Metabolic and Genetic Systems.,
> Fed. Proc. Amer. Soc. 
>   Experim. Biol. 43:917.
>
> 19. Baianu, I.C. 1987. Computer Models and 
>   Automata Theory in Biology and Medicine. In: "Mathematical models in 
>   Medicine.",vol.7.,
> M. Witten, Ed., Pergamon Press: New York, 
>   pp.1513-1577.
>
>
>
> The Earliest Quantum Automata and Quantum 
>   Dynamics in terms of Category Theory:
>
> It is often assumed that 
>   'Categorification' of Quantum Field Theory, or the formal use of the Theory of 
>   Categories in Quantum Gravity and
> Topological Quantum Field theories 
>   (TQFTs) began in the 1990s. In fact, the concepts of Quantum Automata and 
>   Quantum Dynamics represented in terms of Categories, Functors and Natural 
>   Transformations were formally introduced as early as 1968-1973 (Bull. Math. 
>   Biophysics, 33:339-354 (1971), and references cited therein). The 
>   self-contained presentation in the earliest 1968 paper on  Categorical 
>   Dynamics introduce all necessary concepts for a student just entering this 
>   'new' field. This earliest , 1968 US publication will soon become available on 
>   the web.
>
> I.C. Baianu, PhD,
> Professor ,
> University of Illinois at 
>   Urbana,
> Urbana, IL. 
>   61801,                               
>   "I.C. Baianu" < 
>   ***>
> USA
>
> (UIUC)
>
>
>
> At 
>   07:36 PM 5/14/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>
> John K. wrote: Also concepts like 
>   "appropriate and useful in context"
> seem to
> unavoidably imply some 
>   function or purpose, so function seems to be
> defined in the hierarchical 
>   relationship between a system and a
> context.
> The fact, formalized by 
>   Rosen, that there are causally-acting
> feedbacks
> from context to 
>   sub-system, is the essence of  organization. So
> function
> and 
>   organization are related and it is impossible to speak of one
> without the 
>   other, except in a trivial or degenerate case (i.e. the
> material 
>   view).
>
>
> This is exactly right. The amazing thing to me is that so 
>   few areas of
> mainstream science are either willing or able to SEE it. The 
>   proof of
> it is everywhere, yet it is denied-- As a non-scientist, I find 
>   this
> situation incomprehensible, even though I know (intellectually) why 
>   the
> situation exists. But I've always had trouble understanding why 
>   my
> father got so much flack for saying what John K. so elegantly 
>   stated
> above. And my father even went to the trouble of "showing the 
>   work"
> (i.e. how he arrived at those statements). From my perspective, 
>   the
> statements are obvious truths and all that's required to see it 
>   is
> simple common sense.
>
> Function is one of the concepts that is 
>   absent or camouflaged as a
> causal influence in systems that are not alive. 
>   Life and function are
> two qualities of living systems that are either 
>   co-emergent or
> connected via the kind of mutually causal relationship that 
>   is rampant
> in complex systems. To put it another way; either "life" and 
>   "function"
> are both caused by the dimension/level of complexity that 
>   defines
> living systems or they cause each other, at this dimension/level 
>   of
> complex organization. I suppose it could even be both. But the 
>   fact
> that this functional aspect is not apparent in a rock or 
>   a
> gravitational phenomenon or an electrical event-- and these are 
>   the
> systems physics has a good handle on-- I think makes it a habit 
>   for
> physics to view all systems, including biological phenomena, as 
>   being
> "free from" any functional aspect as well. Function is viewed as 
>   an
> observer overlay that taints our ability to understand "what's 
>   really
> going on"... However, the way my father viewed it; function is 
>   simply
> the relational nature of complexity taken to a new level of 
>   causal
> influence, which cannot be ignored in scientific study of 
>   biological
> systems. I personally feel this is why it took a biologist to 
>   see this
> particular mistake in contemporary mainstream science... But it 
>   had to
> be a biologist who had as solid a grasp of contemporary physics as 
>   any
> physicist. Because he had both perspectives, he was able to see 
>   the
> mistakenly juxtaposed concepts at the root of the 
>   contemporary
> scientific paradigm. The COMPLEXITY of biological systems is 
>   the common
> thread that ties all areas of science together, not the 
>   material
> particles that can be found in all systems. Physics has had 
>   it
> backwards from day one.
>
> Judith