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It's always interesting to see how other people look on the
scientific work and ideas of other people. I also believe that everyone has the
right to have and express their opinions, and I see very little in
Howard's post that doesn't fall under that rubric. The few things that are not
expressed as opinions are what I have comments on, below:
Howard Pattee wrote: Rosen's major contribution is to
epistemology, or how we should think about scientific models. The bulk of his
writing revolves around his elaboration and detailed analysis of the modeling
process, and how the choice of observables and the measuring or encoding process
is crucial to what type of formal structures satisfy the Herzian test. He was
especially interested in how a given natural system could be encoded into
inequivalent (complementary) models, including physical models, and especially
why complex systems like life require such multiple inequivalent models. He
certainly did not believe models were true or false, right or wrong, but that
they were evaluated by their Hertzian conformance with the observed behavior of
natural systems.
It is my opinion that what has turned out to be Robert Rosen's
major contribution (to science) is to the foundations of it-- although that
is not what he intended, initially, it is what he ultimately achieved. I also
believe that he achieved an integration of biology with physics which healed a
schism that should never have existed in the first place. Far from creating a
rift with his comment ("The machine metaphor is not just a little bit wrong, it
is entirely wrong and must be discarded."), I believe that is an _expression_ of
honest irritation over the artificial limitations on the scope of physics which
made it impossible for physics to be the general science it always declared
itself to be. It was his belief that Physics should be the general science, but
the artificial limitation must be excised. Anything less than a
new underlying perspective is the equivalent of "Let's not and SAY we
did."
It is also a serious injustice to accuse physicists as a group of claims about biology they have not made, especially when many have explicitly repudiated the claim that physical laws explain life. We all agree that state-determined dynamics do not describe memory controlled systems or informational constraints. They are in most cases fully and critically aware of their assumptions. Physicists are critical but not antagonistic to novel ideas. In fact, they welcome them if they are presented with some modesty and not as the "true model" that calls for discarding all existing models. This set of statements is based on a presumption that is either
inapplicable or not entirely accurate. First of all, as I said before; there is
a difference between accusing physicists (either as a group or individually) and
accusing Physics. He was accusing Physics, based on claims made within the
foundations of Physics itself. Those claims have not been repudiated; they are
still being taught in high school.
Secondly, Robert Rosen believed that physical laws WOULD explain
life, if the laws of Physics were broadened to include aspects of "Natural Law"
that we can now verify (via the Herzian Condition") as being in existence;
namely those connected to organizational causality. There is no need
to develop a "new" science to explain why living organisms are alive, indeed it
would be a mistake to leave the machine metaphor intact even to deal with
"simple systems". The machine metaphor was a conclusion that Rene Descartes
reached and he was mistaken. Period. Why anyone should be so offended by my
father's saying so is a mystery to me. That same "Herzian Condition" is what
proves that Descarte was mistaken and is what my father used as his argument in
all his books!
Thirdly, it is just as inaccurate to characterize Physicists as a
group as being "... in most cases fully and critically aware of their
assumptions. Physicists are critical but not antagonistic to novel ideas."
I've met enough physicists to know that there are all kinds,
frankly, which is pretty much the state of humanity as a whole. How many human
beings are fully and critically aware of their assumptions? Even the most
introspective of us may only be aware of SOME of our assumptions. The trouble
with assumptions is that they are invisible once they attain that kind of
categorization. However, my father was not antagonistic to Physics as a
science and as far as individual Physicists go... he used to joke
(with equal parts seriousness and mischief), in a German accent, "Some of my
best friends are Physicists." (I think that line must have come from Stalag 17
or some other WWII movie).
Finally, I consider my father's work to be very modest in it's
presentation. For all the statements like the one about the machine metaphor,
there are equal numbers of statements poking fun at himself. He had a powerful
self-confidence but he was not egotistical. What you are mistaking for
scientific hubris I see as his innate self-direction and independence of mind.
Judith
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