Re: syntropy, Fantappie, taboo, futures

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Judith,

You raise some good issues. It seems to me that all the
folks who talk about causes in the future or anything
that challenges entropy as the dominant law of nature
get labelled as crackpots and ostracized. Methinks the
entropic mechanists protest too much...it gives away
their own fearfully constructed taboo more than it
challenges syntropy. Still, I don't understand the
worry and violent rejection. Some other folks that
mention or use or develop syntropy include R.
Buckminster Fuller (as topological) and Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi (somewhat vitalistically and religiously,
although his two Nobel prizes help with credibility).
Others that talk about cause in the future or final
cause include von Foerster (just one web mention I
saw), Ulanowicz (with information theory, network
ecology and circular causality of autocatalytic loops)
and Teilhard de Chardin (his omega point).

I think since Fantappie "did the math" as much or more
than any of these others it could help to get some
English translations of his works so that we can critique
and see just what he did with math. From there I would
hope that with work of Rosen, Fantappie, Fuller,
Ulanowicz, ourselves and others we could get syntropy,
anticipation, future cause and related concepts solidly
constructed for long term R & D and as basis for a new
kind of science, one of the important qualities of which
will be (I imagine) that it will enhance the future
prospects, survival and sustainability of life as a whole,
life itself. An open-ended, living future is preferable to
a apocalyptic, entropic one to me. We can learn to
improve ourselves and our environment as we go, like
all living non-human (and some human) communities
do, but only if we let go of entropy as single dominant
monomodel and balance it with syntropy. My opinion...

Dan

Judith Rosen wrote:
> Luigi Fantappie's "syntropy" definitely does sound like a way to descibe
> what happens in Anticipatory systems. One of the most encouraging aspects of
> his work, and Antonella Vannini's discussion of it, is a subtle one: She
> makes the description of what Syntropy means come across in an almost
> casual, off-hand manner, which means that it's not the same outrage it used
> to be. That's enormous progress. What I think she is trying to develop is a
> way to study anticipation, itself.
>
> Antonella Vannini wrote:
> "At the same time, Fantappiè observed the difficulties encountered by the
> experimental method in the study of syntropic relations. The experimental
> method, on which science has always based its studies, can investigate
> cause-effect relations, in which the cause is placed in the past, but it is
> not capable of studying syntropic relations, in which the cause is placed in
> the future. Researchers find it impossible to manipulate syntropic causes,
> because these causes are placed in the future, and as a consequence they
> find that it is impossible to study syntropic relations with the
> experimental method. Fantappiè demonstrated, mathematically, the existence
> of syntropy, but he did not succeed in the formulation of a new methodology
> which could overcome the limits of the experimental method and allow
> scientific studies of syntropic relations and qualities. "