Re: Some pretty good alternate definitions of complexity

[Pete Giansante <***>]

Hi Judith:

You sort of answered your own question, you know. See below.

Judith Rosen wrote:

(snip)

Why is it that, historically, organization has never been considered an important feature in any given system for scientific analysis?

The answers:

 

<>The reason my father's work was so controversial was because he DID follow those lines of logic and he saw the implications. He described the implications and wrote about them. He discussed what the ramifications were.

Here's my take on that one. First of all, you'd have to assume that anyone else had the epistemological perspicacity to spot the inadequacies of reductionism, had the intellectual honesty to realize how fundamentally important their implications are, had the energy, clarity of thought, and scientific integrity to follow those implications through to their logical conclusions, and then have the guts to stand up and say, "Hey, lookit... we've been way off track!"

Any one of those assumptions might apply to some individuals in the scientific community, but not many. Any two of them would apply to a much narrower range of folks. But all of them together? No way. As far as we know, there's only one Robert Rosen, and only one body of work that has that specific content.

Frankly, even if someone had perceived what RR did, how many people would cop to the ramifications part, by which I mean, how many people would have the integrity to say, "Sheesh... I've gotta reconstruct the whole epistemology of science from scratch if I want to be able to work over here in this area that contains the most interesting stuff (complex systems)." Yeah, I know it was really living systems that were his primary motivation -- at least initially -- but he had to do the thinking for complex systems in general to get to where he wanted to go. Works for me.

<>The implications blow the reductionist particle-based paradigm right out of the water.

Now you've nailed it. A lot of people have a lot invested in that paradigm. They don't have the integrity to divest themselves of it in the face of evidence that it's epistemologically deficient, and they sure don't want someone else divesting them of it. RR's view is just so... uh, inconvenient, you see.

Yes... I know you do. Much as I wish it were not so, our less-advanced brain (the limbic system) is the locus of long-held and deeply entrenched beliefs. Consequently, when someone presents contravening ideas, humans typically do not see those ideas as evidence to be considered by the rational functions of the neo-cortex, onna counta that's not where the processing is done. It's done down there at the Doggie Brain level, where "evidence" transmutes to threat. Once fear and loathing kick in... well, you know the rest.

You knew RR; I didn't. But I'll bet he had an almost childlike expectation (or at least a hope) that scientists would process science up in the neo-cortex, not down in Doggie Brain. I suspect that he gradually learned, to his great chagrin, that frequently -- too frequently, in fact -- it happens otherwise.

Anyhow, that's why organization has been excluded. If one is going to be honest about it, it means you have to reconstruct the way we think about what science is, and how it works. RR didn't run from that perception; he just rolled up his sleeves and did the work that the problem itself instructed him to do. I think it's possible that others may have glimpsed the magnitude of that task, but simply ran the other way.

Pete