Re: Entailment, causality, and "why?" questions

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Howard,

 

The tone of this last post of yours is vastly different from all of your posts in the process of discussion on this list, and in fact is reminiscent of the "Howard Pattee" I always thought you were (and was horrified to read your other posts and discover that I was mistaken)...

 

This Howard Pattee speaks of my father with respect and affection, even when honestly disagreeing. That is friendship. 

 

The Howard Pattee I have been seeing on the list until now does something quite different: He belittles, he casts aspersions, he nitpicks and makes bitter criticisms of all things up to and including the very basis of my father's body of work (and then provides a link to his own work)-- as if there is nothing of value in what Robert Rosen developed. That resembles many things, but friendship is not among them.

 

If I have misjudged you, I apologize. But I have nothing except your own words to go on, Howard. Here lies the source of my confusion:

> HP: There is nothing in Rosen's view of causality that I disagree with

 

HP: Every child at some stage of development learns that asking, "Why?" is an infinite regress and a good way to get attention. Every parent learns there is no answer and to finally says, "Because that's the way nature, or God, works.

 

HP: The idea that "one thing leads to another" is the linear deterministic Newtonian paradigm

 

HP: To say why one event follows another is to try to say more than what the laws say, and this is pure metaphysics.

 

HP: Saying causes are real is your assertion. It is not an argument. I agree with most modern philosophers and scientists (see, e.g. "Causation" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy) that the concept of cause is an anthropomorphic concept that is gratuitous for scientific models.

 

HP: The world is not deterministic. All we can observe is that probabilistic events occur in a temporal sequence.

 

HP: I am not aware of Rosen discussing evolution except to minimize its significance from his relational point of view, as in Life Itself.

 

HP: I re-read the references you gave to evolution in Rosen's work. Adaptation is certainly a consequence of evolution, but I think Rosen is trying to fit the process of evolution into his concept of anticipatory system, which it is not.

 

HP: I have always understood Rosen's phrase "closed to efficient causation" as a formal condition, a closed topological loop in a diagram of relations including abstract genetic and metabolic components of an (M,R) system. A less abstract, more material view of this same condition I have called "semantic closure," or more recently "semiotic closure," to reflect the essential non-dynamic symbolic descriptive nature of the gene as contrasted with the material dynamics of metabolism. (Rosen abstracts away this distinction in his (M,R) systems.) I must note, meo periculo, that this is essentially an elaboration of von Neumann's requirement for evolution, i.e., the distinction between description and construction, or (his analogy) of software and hardware. This is clearly only a necessary condition and not a sufficient condition for evolution since viable descriptions are rare in the space of all descriptions. Whether a daughter cell with an immediately lethal gene is alive is just a matter of definition, like how long must it last, or how many faulty proteins must it synthesize to be called alive. For a discussion of semantic closure see: http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/pattee/sem_clos.html

 

HP: Physics is no longer "plagued" with causality any more than it is plagued with the ether. Causality, like the ether, was discarded because it added more to the model than was conceptually useful or empirically testable (Ockham's razor). In both cases, what was added turned out to be only linguistic patterns that had evolved over millennia. Such speech patterns are one form of anthropomorphism.

HP: The test is whether you feel the model makes sense. If Aritotle's "why?" questions satisfy you, that is sufficient. In many daily life situations asking why is to ask about some person's reasoning. I am only pointing out that many philosophers, scientists (and children) have learned that asking "why?" questions about nature may be only a pattern of speech leading inherently to an infinite regress and therefore an illusory or unsatisfying model.

 

This last statement is particularly irksome and is what provoked my comment:  I am finding it very difficult to see what Howard Pattee and my father ever had in common! Clearly, there is nothing left of it, whatever it was.

Robert Rosen's entire body of work, which has generated enough interest to (among other things) create this discussion list devoted to it, is based on ideas of entailment in the natural world applied to answering "Why?" questions about the natural world. In light of that, the final quote above sounds like Salieri to me.

 

In particular, it was the discussion about Von Neumann, that brought out what were very surprising views in you. Where you say: Bob continued to make this unsupported claim for 40 years. I say that it is not an unsupported claim. Quite the contrary, it is supported in every instance of discussion on the subject with his reasons for arriving at that claim. I quoted those reasons, in the original discussion, but you don't hear them. You continue to say he had no reason to make the conclusions he did about Von Neumann's ideas about complexity, when he in fact had very good reasons and clearly laid out what they were. They just don't agree with yours. Furthermore, in that discussion, you made some very bitter personal comments about my father's character that were untrue and were not in keeping with this sentiment: The basis of our relationship was not agreement about esoteric philosophies, but the simple fact that we enjoyed each other's company and each other's minds.

 

So I admit to being confused. It is one thing to state points of intellectual disagreement. It's another to try and tear down someone's character and the conceptual basis on which their work is built, and you have done both in the course of discussion on this list. If you state that your own work is built on Von Neumann's, then that makes your hostility to my father's assessment of Von Neumann's foundations more understandable. But in that case, I don't understand why you would subscribe to a discussion list about Robert Rosen's work.

 

Yet you also made this recent post which sounds like "the old Howard"-- someone my father considered a friend and colleague. Given that we both know how much my father helped you personally and professionally in the past, perhaps you can understand my anger when his "friend" made such bitter statements in a public forum that amounted to a betrayal of my father's friendship and my trust.

 

At this point, I really don't know what to believe about you.

 

Judith Rosen

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Howard Pattee" <***>

To: <***>

Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2004 10:51 AM

Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Entailment, causality, and "why?" questions

> There is nothing in Rosen's view of causality that I 
disagree with, but I still would call Aristotle's causes metaphorical in a 
strong anthropomorphic sense that he explicitly states (architecture and 
sculpture, both human artifacts). Rosen was also a metaphorical thinker as well 
as a literal formalist. He often switches back and forth. But before I get go on 
with suggesting alternative ways to view causality, Judith's earlier comment 
needs some response.
> 
> Judith wrote: I am finding it very 
difficult to see what Howard Pattee and my father ever had in common! Clearly, 
there is nothing left of it, whatever it was.
> 
> HP: In my 
opinion, Judith, you are only having a hard time seeing that these issues are 
not black or white. What Bob and I had in common was far more important than 
agreement on the subject under discussion. The basis of our relationship was not 
agreement about esoteric philosophies, but the simple fact that we enjoyed each 
other's company and each other's minds. I suspect these are the same reasons 
that you enjoyed his company besides the unique father-daughter relationship. It 
is called friendship. What in the world do you think intellectual friends do, 
sit around agreeing with each other? Can you imagine Bob and I sitting around 
for 40 years saying, "Yes, you're right Bob." "Yes, Howard, of course I agree." 
Get real.
> 
> In previous posts I have listed fundamentals where 
Bob and I agree and where I believe Bob ideas should be promoted and emphasized. 
I haven't counted, but I suspect I have promoted Bob's ideas in the published 
literature by discussion and reference to his publications more than anyone on 
this list, certainly longer than anyone else. At the same time, I am not about 
to promote what in my opinion are Bob's views that I think are harmful to his 
reputation. I expect my student to do the same with my ideas. That is the only 
reason I raised the von Neumann issue.
> 
> Judith wrote: Nobody 
likes to be Misrepresented...It's one thing to say "I interpret Rosen this 
way..." and another to say "Rosen believed..." If someone writes "Rosen 
believed..." and expresses ideas that are not what Rosen actually believed, and 
that isn't challenged, then people will assume that the expressed view is 
accurate.
> 
> HP: I could not agree with you more, Judith. But 
Rosen has no special privilege in this respect. What applies to what people say 
about Rosen, must also apply to what Rosen says about people. That is why I gave 
my opinion that Bob had misrepresented von Neumann's beliefs by claiming that 
von Neumann did not grasp the distinction between description and construction, 
even though von Neumann had invented this distinction. Bob continued to make 
this unsupported claim for 40 years. Both Judith and Tim were so incensed by my 
criticism that they responded by accusing me of personal animosity. What do you 
think one should do in a case like this?
> 
> With respect to 
spreading Rosen's views, I think the history of science and philosophy show that 
controversy spreads ideas much better than one-sided promotion. It also shows 
that no ideas are final. Just because of challenges all ideas are modified and 
evolve over time. That is what science does best. I do not agree with Tim and 
Judith that restriction of controversy is good for Bob's ideas. Lack of 
wide-open controversy will, I believe, result in even more isolation of his 
ideas, or worse, in a cult that simply quotes Bob's words as the final 
truth.
> 
> I also believe that promoting the idea of Rosen as a 
victim of personal vendettas and the "barbarians" of the establishment is unfair 
and unproductive. All of us have suffered unfair treatment; we have our 
opponents, we have had to fight referees to get our ideas published, and 
struggled to find a job where we can do our work. But we also have to take 
responsibility for our decisions. We all have complaints about colleagues, but 
it is our responsibility whether we publicize these complaints or not. In my 
opinion, Bob was gratuitously and publicly critical of influential scientists 
simply because of comments that irritated him, ignoring their overall 
contributions to science.
> 
> Also, we cannot claim to be victims 
when we have made the crucial decisions. When the Center for Theoretical Biology 
was destroyed by an "evil" dean at Buffalo, Rosen, Goel, and I were offered a 
home at Binghamton, which Goel and I accepted. George Klir, Chairman of the 
Systems Science Department and the Dean of the School made every effort to get 
Bob to come, but Halifax offered the prestige of an endowed professorship with 
privileges that looked better to Bob. In my opinion, that was a bad choice, and 
Bob in later years agreed. Halifax isolated Bob intellectually and provided no 
adequate source of graduate students. PhD students, later as professors, often 
propagate your ideas better than your old publications. Even though Bob did not 
go to Binghamton, Klir strongly supported Bob's work, published whatever Bob 
wanted, and gave him the special privilege of writing his scientific biography 
in the Journal of General Systems (21(1), 6-22, 1992). None of us feel Bob was a 
victim.
> 
> Keep in mind that in the long run, we have to accept 
the fact that our scientific reputations will not depend on any of these 
personal details but on how persuasively we have presented our ideas to our 
students and in our publications. Fortunately, this is up to the entire 
scientific community of which this list is only a small part.
> 
> 
Howard
>