Re: Operational Closure

[Howard Pattee <***>]

Tim,

You are apparently not reading carefully enough what I wrote, or else I have been totally 
unclear. I was speaking only of physics models. As I read you and Judith apparently 
dismissing the notion of the importance of the choice of observables, you appear to have 
both violated Rosen?s most fundamental point about the modeling relation.

Tim wrote:
Finally, I would question the notion of "importance" of an observable as
being one that "is more objective" or that "enters universal laws of motion
with the least dependence on the state (positions and motions, and even
biases and opinions) of individual observers." This immediately brings to
mind that such a requirement for objectivity and context-independence is a
hallmark of a universe of simple systems.

HP: Let me restate Rosen?s key point as bluntly as possible. An important observable in a 
model of physics is generally not an important observable in a model of life. It is true, 
as you say, that the observables leading to invariant laws are the hallmark of simple 
physical systems. This is precisely why these observables are not the important 
observables for biology. There are an endless number of possible observables. Rosen?s 
central point, emphasized over and over, is that the secret of good modeling as finding 
the important observables. 

Rosen also emphasized that complex system require more than one model. The important 
observables in each of these models will in general be irreducible, one to the other 
(complementarity). They may in fact be formally contradictory. But that is OK because 
they are just models. Reality itself is complex, but it is not contradictory. 

Don?t we agree on this so far?

Howard