|
It is always a mistake to take one phrase out of
one of my father's books, divorce it from his intended
context, and then try to defend it as a quote purportedly
representing "what Rosen believed". The definition of "state" (on
page 75, actually, not 74) in Anticipatory Systems as "embodies that information
about a natural system which must be encoded in order for some kind of
prediction about the system to be made." is a case in point.
The reason this can almost never be done with any accuracy is
because his definitions are very much entailed by their contexts, much like the
organization of living systems are. So, if we are to look around for other
definitions of "state" in my father's written work, I predict we will come up
with some interesting-- and occasionally divergent-- "definitions". There are
even occasions, in his work, where he stated the current physics-based
definition of some concept, like "state", as a prelude to completely
deconstructing it. If that "quote" is pulled out of his book, it could be very
misleading, not to mention quite unfair.
The first order of business is to look at the context that
co-exists with this "quote", on page 75 of Anticipatory Systems. This page
is part of chapter two, in a subsection entitled: "Encodings between Natural and
Formal Systems". Encoded information about a Natural system is not the same
thing as that natural system itself. He would agree that states certainly exist
in formal systems that model natural systems. He also believe
that a certain concept of state exists in the "internal predictive models"
within organisms (as seen on page 126 and 127). He referred to these as
"abstract states". But he did not believe that there is such a thing as a
static "moment in time" (a state) that can be referred to in organisms that has
much, if any, scientific meaning in the effort to understand why living
organisms are alive.
In "Life, Itself", my father goes into very detailed discussions of
"state" and how it relates to science, generally, and biology, physics, etc,
specifically... as well as how difficult language can be in our attempts to
employ it to convey ideas. Beginning on page 40 of "Life, Itself", there is a
set of subsections; "3B. The First Basic Dualism" and "3C. The Second Basic
Dualism"-- which carries over into page 42 and talks about states as follows:
Robert Rosen wrote:"The
partition of ambience [which he defined on the preceding page
as everything outside of the human mind] into system and
environment, and even more, the imputation of that partition to the
ambience itself as an inherent property thereof, is a basic though fateful step
for science. For once the distinction is made, attention focuses on
system [which can be anything: in
biology it may be "an organism", or a subsystem within an organism, and so
on... Here, he defines it, a little farther down on the same page, as:
"a system in the ambience is a collection of percepts that seem to
us to belong together." ] Systems and
environment are thenceforth perceived [by science and
scientists] in entirely different ways, represented and
described in fundamentally different terms. To anticipate somewhat,
system gets described by "states", which are determined by observation;
environment is characterized rather by its effects on system.
Indeed, it is precisely at this point that, as we shall see, fundamental trouble
begins to creep in".
The discussion about state continues with an entire chapter devoted
to it beginning on pate 67. This chapter is entitled; "The Concept of
State". Here, the reader will find a prime example of a statement that might
seem to be completely opposite to what my father really believed, and the
confusion is due to the subtle way he tended to phrase things:
"Central to the notion of natural systems is the attendant
notion of state. As I remarked earlier, and as we shall see in more
detail in the present chapter, system and state have become
essentially coextensive; systems are described in terms of their possible
states, while their environments are not (and indeed, cannot be). [The subtlety here is that he presumes the reader will have
progressed to this point from page one of the present volume, "Life,
Itself", and have seen the earlier discussion. Furthermore, there is his
phrasing-- the words "have become coextensive" with its subsequent semicolon...
He is illustrating what coextensive means,
namely; the manner in which contemporary science describes
their definitions of systems and environments; not HIS attitude towards
such things, nor his definitions.]
"As is true with all the deep concepts of contemporary
science, the idea expressing systems in terms of states, and [describing]
everything that happens in systems in terms of state transitions, goes back to
Newtonian mechanics."
There are four more indexed discussions on the subject of states in
this same book; pg 165, 203, 209, and 217. In "Essays on Life, Itself", there
are additional discussions that involve the scientific concept of "state" and
how it bears on numerous other issues. On page 221, in the midst of the essay
"Optimality in Biology and Medicine" (one of my favorites), the issue takes on
very serious consequences-- which I alluded to in the Rosennean Modeling project
that has been back-burnered, it seems. Then, on page 310, in the essay
"Cooperation and Chimera", in a subsection entitled; "Some System Theory", there
is another little gem:
"The mechanism that most biologists espouse provides
definite answers to some of our questions. It stipulates what an
individual is and what behavior is, but what survival
means does not have any straightforward mechanistic counterpart. Yet, as we have
seen, adaptive behavior is linked to survival, and Darwinian
evolution depends on adaptation. Biologists, in general, feel that they dare not
stray from mechanistic strictures without falling into vitalism. Hence, the
conundrums that have always plagued what passes for evolutionary theory (see
Life, Itself)."
If anyone on the list does not have access to these two books,
let me know. I can easily transcribe the various discussions and post them.
However, from what is included here, I believe I have thoroughly supported my
initial point(s).
Judith
|