Dan, I think I understand your uneasiness with what is undeniably a simplification process that is required for the scientific creation of models-- particularly where natural ecosystems are concerned (although the potential for problems can be substantially reduced by having a theoretical underpinning of complexity rather than the machine metaphor/reductionism).
However, the fact that models are limited is a fact that even living organisms cannot escape. Anticipatory System Theory postulates that living systems are anticipatory in that they have models of themselves, of their environment, and of more than one time-scale encoded into their organization-- and this information is utilized to generate an "anticipatory mode of system control". This gives living organisms a huge edge in maintaining stability over a purely reactive system, but it's not foolproof. Changing global climate naturally leads to the death of species and corresponding change of whole ecosystems, as we see in the fossil record. While these internal predictive models seem to encode that "change is a constant", there are ranges within which the models can predict and outside those ranges, the models are useless. If I left my potted citrus trees outside on my deck tonight, they would be badly damaged or killed by the cold. The internal models don't adapt and don't "learn".
This is what led my father to say the behavior of living organisms is guided/constrained by "models" in the first place, knowing full well that models are abstracted and simplified versions of the systems being modeled. The fact that you can "confuse" and/or "fool" a plant is exploited by humans all the time, for endless reasons including profit. What's the U.S. revenue generated by Poinsettia sales over the holidays? Where did those plants evolve? What is their normal blooming time? How does the plant trade induce the colorful display to coincide with Xmas?
So, while there is certainly potential for danger in the creation of models, it's not a danger peculiar to science or one that only humans deal with; it's part of life in general. We have all sorts of models encoded within us, as well, some of which seem to be vestigial from an earlier time when our environment was different from what it is now. Hence, we have an appendix (as one example) and don't know what the heck it would be useful for. Obviously, the fact that our evolution included a changing diet is part of the information we have encoded into our organization... but how far can it change and still maintain the integrity of the system?
This is how I look on the epiphany Atkins stumbled onto. The current low-carb movement is a return to eating within our encoded models, for a lot of us. Sometimes called "The Maker's Diet" or a Biblical Diet, I think it goes much father back than that. The epidemic of type two diabetes is a symptom that a diet high in processed carbs is too far outside the ranges we can tolerate. We are also learning that biodiversity in soil ecology has a direct effect on the nutrient value of food grown in it and chemical intensive farming techniques are damaging that ecology. Humans have an edge in dealing with the limitations of our models: We can (hopefully) use our intelligence to learn and deliberately modify our behavior to match our internal models.
Judith
----- Original Message ----- From: Howard Pattee
To: ***
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Which part of the brain (or subject-object system) is conscious?
At 02:14 PM 12/10/04 -0500, Dan wrote: >Howard, > >This is all well and good for a formal system and for a >static model. But I think if you try to extend it to into the >material realm and a continuous and changing modeling >process, this view itself needs a complement.
HP: This necessity for placing a cut between the model itself and what is
being modeled has nothing to do with he scope or time frame of what is
being modeled. Whatever system you are modeling requires that the model is
not identical with the system itself, but a model of the system. Complex
systems require more than one model, but the models must still be separate
from whatever is being modeled .
>Dan: When we consider that the observer only >can observe with aid of a continuous stream of energy >and material from the environment (air, water, food, etc.) >- including likely interactions with the objectified system >he/she observes so the object system and observer's life >support cannot be disentangled - and that also a continual >stream of energy and materials that have been altered in >quality, quantity and configuration (waste and other >products, impacts), it seems to me that the epistemic cut is >fully bridged, or healed.
HP: In this example you are only moving the cut so as to include more of
the ecosystem. Your model is now about a much bigger system that will
require many more measurements (encodings), but the larger model will still
be separated from the system by these encodings. All you have 'healed" is
the previous cut made for the simpler system.
>Dan: So not only is the location of the cut arbitrary, but I think >the cut itself is arbitrary or a choice too when one considers >that there is an alternative.
HP: I don't see any alternative. The position of the cut is all that is
arbitrary. You have not shown how the concept of "model" can evade the
modeling relation as Rosen represents it.
Howard