Re: Models and ecosystem balance/change...

[Howard Pattee <***>]

At 03:41 PM 12/10/04 -0800, Steve wrote:
> Is the ability to develop certain
> models is itself a
> model that is embedded in the genome or is produced
> through coupling of the phenotype and the environment?

HP: Models at the level of the gene are more easily understood as
descriptions, which are one type of model, but without the connotation
that we give models at the cognitive level.

> Steve: In that sense it would the
> genome be a second order
> model of the likely models that the organism would
> have to build in order to adapt to the range of
> environments it may find itself in.

HP: I would call the gene the first order description, since there is no
description below the gene.

> Steve: What would be a third order
> model? Does it make sense
> to talk of this hierarchy of models?

HP; Yes. Rosen wrote earlier about hierarchies of descriptions and models
in biological organization. Hierarchical organization requires multiple
descriptions or models. Hierarchies are complex systems. See Rosen quote
below:

Rosen: According to the very definition I have proposed for hierarchical
organization, the first essential point is that no one type of system
description can possibly display by itself a definite type of
hierarchical structure for the simple reason that we recognize such
structure only by the necessity for different kinds of descriptions at
the various levels in the hierarchy. [Rosen, "Hierarchical
Organization in Biological Systems" in Hierarchical Structures,
Whyte, Wilson, and Wilson, eds., Elsevier, 1969, p 188.]

Howard