Re: Maximally constrained

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Howard
> Pattee
> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 10:39 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: Maximally constrained
>
>
> Tim and Judith,
>
> Both your responses go way beyond the issue I was addressing. I
> have no disagreement with most of what you both say. To return to
> the issue I raised: My comment was that Rosen, although referring
> to discussions with me, did not understand my principle point (at
> least in this paper). I still don?t see any interpretation of
> Rosen?s 1986 paper that would suggest the principle I have
> proposed, i.e., that life harnesses natural laws as much as
> possible, and uses the minimum number of informational
> constraints. He appears to express the opposite. Rosen says, ?The
> point we wish to make is that such a maximally constrained system
> is the only kind of mechanical system for which Morowitz?s
> comments [about seeds]

TG:Minor nitpick: Morowitz's quoted comments are about bacterial cells, not
seeds. Maybe Morowitz made similar comments about seeds elsewhere?

> holds. It is also, according to the many
> discussions of Howard Pattee, one way of defining the concept of
> a machine as a material system.?
-snip-

TG: Since this seems to be the central issue, I'll just focus on this
paragraph. Outside of the conflict in the adjectives "maximally" and
"minimum", I don't see right away that your proposal and Rosen's are
necessarily incompatible because they seem to address different qualities of
a system. Rosen is talking about a system sufficiently mechanically
constrained to eliminate all independent velocity variables and make them
dependent upon configuration alone (i.e., his "maximally constrained
system"). You are talking about a "minimum number of informational
constraints". Rosen's term 'constraints' is about mechanical (primarily
non-holonomic) constraints in analytical mechanics.  I am not sure how the
term 'constraints' in your "informational constraints" would translate into
mechanical constraints in analytical mechanics - are your "informational
constraints" all holonomic mechanical constraints? If so, I am not sure how
this would be incompatible with a system that is additionally constrained to
have all its velocity variables dependent upon configuration.

Regards,
Tim