design the software. In an organism this is commonly thought to
refer to
genome or DNA. The telling category, which doesn't
exist from within the
computer, is Final Cause. That's because it doesn't
apply to simple systems,
whereas Final Cause is the category that reveals the
essence of living
systems. The final cause answer to "Why computer?" would be
"Because Human
Being..." And this is precisely where the trouble is in a
comparison with
the natural world. Human beings are, obviously, complex
systems and science
has been wrestling with the transference of our own
complexity to machines
for a long, long time. Final cause has to do with
functional entailments and
when we look at computers, the functional
entailments all come from human
needs.
When we use computers (or any
other mechanism) to try to simulate life, we
try to paste in as many of the
functional activities we can find in a living
system, but the organization of
a computer is already simple (non-complex).
No amount of complicatedness will
ever yield complexity because complexity
is an innate organization whereby
everything about the organization is
entailed from within. You may be able to
accurately "simulate" life, for a
brief time, via an extremely complicated
mechanism (and this is what
cellular automata do), which is sometimes called
bio-mimesis. There's a
really good chapter on this in Essays on Life, Itself
(Chapter 7), which
also talks about Psycho-mimesis (artificial mind or
A.I.).
Judith
> ----- Original Message
-----
> From: "Tim Gwinn" <
***>
> To: <
***>
>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 9:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Why is this
machine not an MR Organism?
>
>
> > Hi Steve,
>
>
> > Welcome to the list. :)
> >
> > Computers
are rather nefarious things to try to use for examples in
>
relation
> > to organisms or to (M,R)-systems. The primary reason is
that a computer
> does
> > two things: 1) it is a system with
entailments, and 2) it also simulates
> > other systems of entailments
inside of it. It is important to keep the
> > distinction between the
two clear.
> >
> > As a system with entailments, there is the
hardware, which acts as
> efficient
> > cause, on the software,
the material cause. f::A->B. This is the overall
> > relational
organization of a computer or "machine" in Rosennean terms.
> >
>
> As a simulator of other systems of entailments, the software
*encodes*
> those
> > entailment structures as part of the
sequence of material cause acted on
> by
> > the hardware. This
all takes place *inside* of the organization of
> > entailment of
hardware acting on software.[see Life Itself p. 221-2 and
> Fig
>
> 9B.4]
> >
> > In your first example, we need to look at
it as the hardware acting as
> > efficient cause on the software.
*Within* the software, we may have
> > subroutines we call "repair"
etc., but they are not additional entailment
> > structures to the
relational organization of the computer itself. All the
> > software
you can stuff in there is still going to only be material cause
>
in
> > the system's relational organization.
> >
> >
Perhaps (maybe) it would be possible to create a computer that could
have
> > enough redundancy built in and be able to grab spare parts of
a shelf to
> > repair itself. As you correctly note, the spare parts
are material causes,
> > or inputs, to the system. But whether it can
repair itself or not, since
> the
> > relational organization of
a computer is still only f:A->B, then this is
> not
> > a
realization of an (M,R)-system, the relational organization of an
> >
organism.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
Tim