|
I've been musing on the concepts of "reality and reasonable
facsimile" or natural systems and models of natural systems-- and what happens
when the two are not in "congruence". Such musings lead naturally into thinking
about new ways of establishing or restoring congruence between natural
systems and the models we create of them...
One of the things that I notice in science is that scientists often
become engrossed in "processes"-- as do people in any profession, I suppose. It
happens even in non-professional areas of life, as well (I remember a personal
trainer, a few years back, exhorting me; "You gotta learn to love the
process, Jude...") I suspect this tendency is endemic simply because it is
another aspect of human nature. However, the danger in this tendency is to
become so engrossed in a process that the reason for the development of the
process gets lost. I think this is what has happened in science generally--
science itself is "a process", after all. My father's trouble with
mainstream science (and mainstream scientists) tended to be created from this
attachment that human beings form to a process they like or feel comfortable
with. Some scientists, particularly experimentalists, have actually specialized
in "processing" and have little interest in the deep underlying issues. It's
little wonder, then, that such folks didn't take very kindly to my father coming
along and saying that reductionist approaches won't achieve answers to any of
the fundamental questions in biology.
His willingness to sacrifice established "process" in order to
pursue the original question or problem was one of his strengths. He also was
able to keep his focus rather than be sidetracked by the myriad side issues that
cropped up along the way-- and was occasionally criticized for not developing
those side issues further. One of the side issues is "how to build models based
on Rosennean Complexity Theory".
One of the things I've been seeing in several recent
discussions on the list lately is a great deal of attachment to, or excitement
about, various modes of modeling (modeling processes). The "best" modeling
process for some complex system is only "best" in a context-- whatever that
context may be. A change in context may require a change in process, among other
things. Some spectacularly successful mode or process for modeling some complex
system may only be successful for a short time. The first question, then, in
developing any Rosennean model for some complex system is to inquire into the
context-- or so it would seem from where I'm standing. Everything from that
point on is generated because of the contextual influence and it seems very
important to bear that in mind when looking at other applications for the
modeling process that is created or when looking at remedial tweaking on a
process that isn't working optimally.
The difficulty with such realities as human nature impinging on
professional pursuits is that we tend to become very good at something, and
then we get a lot of positive reinforcement from being good at it. It is human
nature to marry our "traditions". When a scientific process becomes
more important than the initial reasons for developing it, the situation is
unbalanced. In that case, if the original context changes
too much for the "process" to be useful anymore, one would either have to take
that expertise (in applying and/or manipulating the initial "process") to a
new context which closely matched the original, or work to keep the
context from changing. Ever.
Such areas of thought become even more intriguing when applied to
the internal models that all living systems have as part of their complex
organization.....
Ah, well... time to go do yard work.
Judith
|