Re: Inconsistency, natural vs formal

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Howard Pattee wrote:

> > H.Pattee wrote: Inconsistency can arise only in formal symbol
> > systems. Nothing in nature can be inconsistent (What would
> > that mean?).

Howard,

What about indeterminate or uncertain or ambiguous? Can't a
natural system have/be these? And if so, aren't these in essence
indistinguishable from inconsistenty? In your box of gas example,
for work to be done, energy must be dissipated. But perhaps the
converse is always true too - for dissipation to occur, work must
be done. Which of these is the more true sequence or order, more
important or more lawlike, may vary depending on the
circumstance and thus be ambiguous in general. This might be so
even independent of any human or living observer.

Are these issues perhaps also closely related to unfractionability -
is it so hard to unambiguously and consistently define/identify
or model a life form because one cannot neatly fraction it from
its environment (formally or really) the most logical "other" or
context or ground against which the "self" or system or figure
would stand out?

Is it possible that this unmodelability is both formal and natural?
Does the "problem" we hit with complexity and complementarity
reflect a real aspect of nature? Could it also be that this natural
indeterminacy, ambiguity, wiggle room (if it is real) is
fundamentally involved in making the hard to model features, like
life, what they are? What if these hard to model "things" are
precisely that, even on purpose or by design or for survival needs -
ambiguous, indeterminate, uncertain, unpredictable? And maybe
the converse is likewise antithetical to life - to be modelable or
determinate or certain or predictable in an inherently uncertain
environment could be the surest way to fail, the guaranteed way
not to be able to adapt, anticipate, deal with utter surprise and
true novelty and still survive and thrive.

Just curious...some questions that have come up for me in reading
the posts...

Dan