Re: Operational Closure

[Steve Johnson <***>]

I just realized that out of context my remark about
causality being a sore issue must have sounded
bizarre.  It was on my mind because just before I
wrote my email I was reading through some discussions
on ROSEN list archives (from a few months ago) which
contained heated arguments about whether or not
causality is a useful concept, whether it is just a 
figure of speech imposed by the human observer etc. 

>From what I understand from M&V I agree with Tim that
they argue not so much against entailment as against
the simple colloquial use of the word causality where
A had B as a cause. In reality it would be difficult
to find any event which has just one other event as a
"cause". The common use of the word "cause" also has a
strong temporal connotation which is not how Rosen
used it. 

Even if you deny causality as useful concept for
modelling in a sense that there is no one thing that
ever "causes" another you probably would not deny
entailment which is a much more generic concepts that
two events (as distinguished by the structuring mind
of the observer) can be linked.

I guess these arguments come down to precise
definition  of the word "cause" so I'm not going to
pursue this anymore.

What is interesting is that Rosen often talks of the
self and the mind as containing another universe (the
mathematical one) which is brought into congruence
with the causal (i.e. outside of self) entailments.
Indeed this is the essence of the modelling relation
as I understand it.

M&V on the other hand go out of their way to extrude
the mind as a container of a separate universe and try
to build a self referential closure in their narrative
to avoid the paradoxes of the mind/environment
dualism. To them there is no independent
reality/existence which is brought into congruence
with the mind. Reality is constructed by living beings
through linguistic distinctions. In this their argment
is very similar to the one presented by Hilary Lawson
in "Closure". (Which I think I found on Tim's website)

Rosen was of course aware of the problems arising from
the mind/environment dualism and one of the chapters
in Essays on Life Itself is dedicated to the
mind/brain problem. However, usually he speaks of the
mind as being the container for this independent
mathematical universe. 

Judith,

I have not yet read Anticipatory Systems (so far I
only read the first two chapters) but I definitely
plan to. 

- Steve






 




 








 

--- Tim Gwinn <***> wrote:

> 
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: ROSEN Forum
> [mailto:*** Behalf Of
> Judith
> Rosen
>   Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 9:12 AM
>   To: ***
>   Subject: Re: Operational Closure
> 
> 
>   Hi Stephen,
> 
>   First off, I was unaware that "causality" is a
> sore topic on this list.
> How can it be, when discussing Robert Rosen's
> work??? His work is all about
> the causal pathways of systems in the universe.
> Causality was his main
> focus, in many ways. So my feeling is; don't
> hesitate to ask questions about
> this (or anything else). It's Tim's list, but it
> would surprise me if he
> disagreed on this subject. In any case, you can
> always email me off-list
> with questions, too.
>   -snip-
> I agree with Judith's remarks. I'm not sure what
> Steve was referring to in
> calling causality being a "sore topic". Causality -
> and more generally,
> entailment - is central to Rosennean modeling and
> complexity. Maybe there
> have been disagreements over specific assignments of
> causal categories for
> some systems, but I wouldn't have considered that as
> making it a sore topic.
> 
> Regards,
> Tim
> 



                
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