Form

[Steve Johnson <***>]

Judith,

Thanks, that is helpful. I suppose "form" the way
Howard used it is a primary notion akin to
"organization" in the Rosennean sense, perhaps not
amenable to definition.

Form is obviously a common word but when used as a
known 99% of the time it is a synonom to the word
"type" or "kind". For example in the two sentences
below (not related to this discussion) "form" and
"type" are interchangeable. 

"I believe that we'd have to wait for Topos tools in
this field, and especially some form of generalization
of Hopf Algebras"

"One can accuse him of applying his own form of
reductionism"


On the other hand it is very rare for the word "form"
to be used as an independent subject as in Howard's
email: "Only form gives meaning".

>From now on I'll assume that when used as a free
standing noun it referes to "organization" in some
sense.

 
 


--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> The hard part about definitions is that they are
> used differently by 
> different minds, even when you try to specify the
> meanings. I 
> interpret the first quote to mean that how words are
> arranged in 
> context is what generates meaning. The organization
> of all aspects 
> which go into the creation of language including the
> mechanical rules 
> of alphabet, letters and pronunciations, grammar,
> etc. plus the 
> evolved set of words with their meanings and
> connotations, 
> differentiated by contexts and so forth-- It's a
> complex system, which 
> is why dissecting language is of limited value and
> it's also why 
> computer geniuses are having trouble creating one
> artificially that 
> will work in the machine we call a computer.
> 
> The second quote is actually an interpretation of
> what "Rosen says":
> 
> "Rosen says that
> organization (or form or relation) is as much or
> more a part of reality as particles."
> 
> What Rosen said did not use the word "form". The
> notion of relation or 
> "Relational causality" is, in my father's view,
> something fundamental 
> in the universe. It both implies, and is implied by,
> "organization". 
> The actual quote has a great deal more to it than
> the interpretation:
> 
> Robert Rosen said; "The organization of a natural
> system (and in 
> particular, of a biological organism) is at least as
> much a part of 
> its material reality as the specific particles that
> constitute it at a 
> given time, perhaps indeed more so."
> 
> Let's analyze this sentence:
> 
> The organization of a system refers to all aspects
> of the system, not 
> just its structure or its energy potentials or time
> or subsystems or 
> functions or relations between any/all of the
> above... It refers to 
> some unifying configuration of all of the above and
> whatever we're 
> missing with our human limitations. It's a concept
> that is 
> trans-dimensional.
> 
> Does all material reality depend entirely on
> material particles? What 
> is "Matter"? Not all systems are particle-based, you
> see... Not all 
> relations are between particles, either. In fact,
> relations-- in and 
> of themselves-- are not "material" things yet there
> is 
> causality-potential inherent in them. The material
> particles in a 
> living organism are constantly changing due to
> metabolism and repair. 
> We talked about this once, I seem to recall; that
> the particles 
> completely change over some interval of time, but
> the organization 
> remains. You're still you, even though the matter
> you are made out of 
> has been cycling over and over every 8 weeks or so.
> Does that mean 
> that you could retain your organization without any
> material particles 
> at all? No. Material particles are a
> non-fractionable aspect of your 
> organization. The types of material particles also
> is important, 
> because the behaviors and potentials of variously
> organized atoms, 
> molecules, etc, are part of the organization too.
> But the specific 
> individual particles? No. As he put it, if you chase
> the specific 
> particles themselves, you'll follow them right
> through an organism and 
> miss the organism completely. What he believed was
> that we need to 
> follow the causality, not particles. Causality can
> reveal non-material 
> aspects of organization like "relational"
> interaction, etc.
> 
> Does that clarify?
> 
> Judith
> PS: The word "form", to me, is not a synonym of
> "organization" unless 
> you specify that (like the Star Trek usage of "life
> form"). Otherwise, 
> it tends to read as a more limited notion than the
> word "organization" 
> does.
> 
> Website address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com/
> My favorite discussion list (Independent-- Not part
> of Rosen 
> Enterprises): ***
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Steve Johnson
>   To: ***
>   Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 10:31 AM
>   Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Operational Closure
> 
> 
>   I apologize for a stupid question. On this list
> people
>   often use the word "form" in a way whose meaning
> is
>   often elusive to me. Just in this thread Howard
> and
>   Tim used multiple times. Can someone define what
> is
>   the precise meaning of the  word "form" in the
>   following sentences. Two are from Howard's last
> email
>   and one if from Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form.
> 
> 
>   "My own favorite analogy is natural language where
>   only form generates
>   meaning."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   "To experience the world clearly, we must abandon
>   existence to truth, truth to indication,
> indication to
>   form, and form to void." p.101, Laws of Form
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   --- Howard Pattee <***> wrote:
> 
>   > Tim,
>   >
>   > I'm not sure where or if we disagree. Let's
> leave
>   > Plato out of it, since we may disagree on how he
>   > thought.
>   >
>   > What do you think Rosen means by "material
> reality"
>   > if it is not, as you say, what we impute back to
> the
>   > natural system from our models? Rosen says that
>   > organization (or form or relation) is as much or
>   > more a part of reality as particles. I am quite
> sure
>   > he means that there exists in reality (that is,
>   > ontologically) something that corresponds via
>   > encoding to the mathematical model of
> organization,
>   > and that this is what is important. Of course,
> this
>   > is in addition to other encodings that model
>   > particles. It makes no sense in his epistemology
> to
>   > speak merely of "alluding to the relative
> importance
>   > of a model," as you say, without the necessary
>   > implication of the corresponding importance of
> what
>   > the models encodes. Only a solipsist can omit
> such
>   > an implication, and Rosen was not a solipsist.
>   >
>   > The reason I am quite sure of this is that
>   > epistemology and the requirements of the
> modeling
>   > relation were central to our discussions at
> Buffalo.
>   > In fact, that is where they were developed,
>   > stimulated primarily from reading Hertz's
> Principles
>   > of Mechanics. The central idea is based on the
>   > limitations of what we observe, what Rosen
> called
> 
=== message truncated ===



                
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