Re: Quantum Physics, Robert's models, sensory perception

[Judith Rosen <***>]

One of the problems my father spoke about often was the fact that physics,
as a set of tools, has only changed in its outer layers, by accretion. It
has been added to and tweaked, here and  there. However, the premises at the
root of the discipline, which are responsible for the dismissal of most of
what biology deals with in living organisms, are unchanged.

In a sense, then, it is not "physics" alone that is "impoverished", it is
the curatorship of what ought to be a developing science that is
impoverished.  The point my father was making is that it is the foundations
on which physics was built that need changing. Much of the structure and
approach can remain, although it will not be any more useful for biological
systems than it is now. But if the fundamental premises are improved, then
new physics can be generated to approach biological questions. In fact, I
believe that Rosennean Complexity Theory is precisely that.

Judith
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ionel" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 12:33 AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Quantum Physics, Robert's models, sensory perception


Tim and Howard:

I would agree with most things Howard said , and add some more about the
status of fundamental theories in Physics today ... For example,
theoreticians in the fields of string theory or Topological Quantum Field
Theories (TQFT) are attempting to describe Quantum Gravity using
N-categories and special topological manifolds treated with categorical
tools.

After all, Prigogine who did receive the Sweedish prize, dealt with open
systems, and I have the strong feeling from what Robert wrote about his
work that he was positive about Prigogine's contributions, and that's part
of modern Physics, too!

Another example:  Werner Heisenberg in his early book on "Principles of
Quantum Mechanics" gives strong reasons why putting together the measuring
system and the observed system is not such a good idea, at least for
treating microscopic, or quantum, systems. He also leaves the door open to
future developments in Physics and points out problems in Quantum Field
Theory that have only been partially resolved by Feynman and John Wheeler.

Ionel

On Tue, 25 May 2004 05:31:40 -0400, Tim Gwinn <***> wrote:

>Howard,
>
>In your final paragraph:
>
>> As I
>> said earlier, introducing relational concepts into the biological
>> community is enough of a problem without antagonizing physicists.
>> Leave out the umbrella complaints about physics. What Rosen
>> modelers should work on are biological models based on his
>> relational principles that have good observables that can define states.
>
>Rosennean complexity may appear most prominently in biological systems, but
>it is certainly not limited to the living. This complexity is pervasive
>among systems generally. So, I strongly disagree with the suggestion that
>modeling activities based around Rosennean complexity "should" be somehow
>confined to making only biological models, and leaving physics alone. That,
>to me, is antithetical to the entire notion of Rosennean complexity.
>
>Tim
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Howard
>> Pattee
>> Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 8:35 AM
>> To: ***
>> Subject: Re: models, sensory perception
>>
>>
>> Tim,
>>
>> I will try to explain why I brought up what I found  ambiguous in
>> the your concept of the NP. Let me make clear that I am in
>> complete agreement with Rosen that NP is not a universal format.
>> What I disagree about is the claim that NP fairly characterizes
>> all of modern physics and that physicists themselves believe that
>> NP is universal. In other words, there is no disagreement here
>> except a misconception about physics.
>>
>> In LI, p. 134, Rosen says about relational models: "As I have
>> developed it so far, there is no time parameter, no states, no
>> state transition sequences. There are only components (mappings),
>> and organizations, the abstract block diagrams that can be built
>> from them."
>>
>> I asked about the extremum (variational) and symmetry principles
>> just because they also have no time parameter, no states or state
>> transition functions. These are called principles, but they are a
>> type of relational model. These types of models one could call
>> synchronic because time has been abstracted away. In any case,
>> they are often considered more foundational in physics than any
>> particular dynamics.
>>
>> I wondered whether you would recognize them as a type of
>> relational model. The quote you gave (EL p. 216) is ambiguous.
>> Rosen says variational principles seem to "violate"
>> state-determination, and this "has always bothered people," but
>> he does not pursue the issue. It has bothered some philosophers,
>> but it does not bother physicists. They regard it as a useful
>> complementary model. It apparently bothered Rosen because the
>> principle is not within the NP. Symmetry principles, each of
>> which leads to a conservation law (Noether's theorem), are even
>> more fundamental in modern physics and they certainly are not
>> part of the NP.
>>
>> Rosen and I have always agreed that there is no complete model of
>> anything. In fact, one of his measures of system complexity was
>> the number of models needed to answer basic questions about the
>> system. Abstract relational models are fundamental to modern
>> physics, but by themselves synchronic models are not directly
>> testable models. Physics complements timeless models with
>> time-dependent models, time-symmetric models with
>> time-antisymmetric models, and discrete particle models with
>> continuous field models. These models may even appear
>> inconsistent if one tries to combine them formally into a single
>> model. This is all outside the NP.
>>
>> We agree that in science we must make empirical contact with
>> reality somewhere. What this means is that there must be
>> measurements on states. That is all physicists (and Rosen) mean
>> by a state. States can be simple or complex, defined by numbers
>> or just patterns. But numbers and patterns must be ultimately be
>> recognized locally in ordinary classical space and time. This is
>> just as true for variational and symmetry models as for other
>> relational models. It holds for cells, evolution, QM, and all
>> physical models. If string theory does not eventually stimulate a
>> model with a measurable consequence it will die out.
>>
>> Rosen defines states this way in AS. Following the modeling
>> diagram on p. 74, he says: "(italics) a state embodies that
>> information about a natural system which must be encoded [by
>> observation and measurement] in order for some kind of prediction
>> to be made. It should be explicitly noted that, according to this
>> definition, the concept of state of a natural system is not
>> meaningful apart from a specific encoding of it into some formal
>> system." In other words, a state is defined only by what you
>> decide to measure. He elaborates this on p. 127 where he also
>> notes the necessity of the epistemic cut  (Fig. 3.2.1). There,
>> Rosen says, "The dotted line (in the Fig.) bisecting the diagram
>> separates those parts which pertain to the external world from
>> those that pertain to the world of formal systems."
>>
>> So I think everyone agrees that formal state-determined,
>> single-time dynamics is neither universal nor a lingua franca.
>> This issue is a straw man. Rosen only in LI, not in AS, sounds
>> like physicists have somehow imposed this artificial restriction
>> to the NP on themselves. This is certainly not how physicists
>> think. In fact, this is just reversing cause and effect. It is
>> true that many universal laws of nature can be expressed by a
>> memoryless, state-determined dynamics. But this is not because
>> physicists imposed this on nature by restricting themselves to
>> NP. This is because it is the nature of simple particles to have
>> no internal memory. Furthermore, the conceptual basis from which
>> these laws were derived is clearly outside the NP. The
>> formalization of the laws is only the last step in a long process
>> of nonformalizable, non NP conceptual models. Many solid-state
>> models are not state determined.  Protein folding models are a
>> good biological example.
>>
>> Rosen recognized all this in AS, but in LI he tries to support
>> his own views by criticizing physics. Rosen's relational views
>> must stand on their own, and in fact physicists are much more in
>> tune with Rosen's relational models than he appreciated. As I
>> said earlier, introducing relational concepts into the biological
>> community is enough of a problem without antagonizing physicists.
>> Leave out the umbrella complaints about physics. What Rosen
>> modelers should work on are biological models based on his
>> relational principles that have good observables that can define states.
>>
>> Howard