Hi John (K),
You're right about any natural system that is "a mechanism" being a fragment because complexity basically proves that "context" is inseparable from "system" in reality. However, the word system refers to something, which was described in Life, Itself as (this is from memory, not a direct quote):"a collection of percepts which, to the self, seem to belong together". That's already an abstraction based on fragmentation. So any way we speak of systems is going to be a similar sort of fragmentation-- this goes back to what human consciousness can "know", etc. However, insofar as we can speak of "complex systems" in the natural world, we can also find "simple systems" or mechanisms (which is different from "machine", by the way). My father used to refer to a solar system as a "simple system", for example.
Judith
----- Original Message ----- From: John Kineman
To: ***
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Is it sure that any mechanism has a largest model? (LI,8C, p.205)
Judith,
It is a philosophical question indeed, however I am inclined to say
there are no whole systems in nature that are mechanisms. It's sort-of a
word game in a way, because if you did find a system that you could call
a mechanisms, then I could point out that your system definition isn't
whole, i.e., isn't complete (its a fraction). For example, let's
consider a piece of paper as a mechanism (i.e., a "thing"). This is true
if we restrict our abstractions only to the physical properties of what
we call the paper. But then I annoyingly come in and point out that the
paper is part of a paper manufacturing system and was delivered to the
classroom by a transportation system, and all involve people and the
natural ecosystem and ultimately the entire universe. Hence the "piece
of paper" is actually complex, unless by "piece of paper" we agree we
are referring only to the mechanistic concept of "piece of paper," that
concept being one in which we can define separate state-objects in an
extended space and time.
That's basically what I'm getting at. JK
Judith Rosen wrote:
>Hi John K.
>
>I agree with part of this statement, below, but I have some qualms
>about certain aspects of it:
>
>John Kineman wrote: The very concept of "mechanism" presumes a finite
>largest model
>that is therefore a reality, and yet we also understand any
>mechanistic
>theory to be an approximation to reality. Both cannot be true. Hence
>either the entire universe is a mechanism, and there is no complexity,
>or there are no real mechanisms, all of them are abstractions.
>
>It is not only "any mechanistic theory" that is an approximation to
>"reality"... all of science would have to be considered the same way,
>including Rosennean Complexity Theory. Even a concept like "reality"
>is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? But just because our
>conception of the universe is an approximate thing, that's no reason
>to give up on trying to learn about the universe, right? I don't see
>these things as being mutually exclusive.
>
>It's important to remember that Complexity in my father's sense refers
>to organizational aspects. So are there "mechanisms" in the real
>world? Yes. Is it an abstraction? Yes. But, so is the concept that we
>refer to as "the real world". Abstraction, in this case, just means
>"as funneled through the human apparatus" but since we are all humans
>here (presumably)... it's not a problem. A mechanism, as defined via
>Rosennean Complexity Theory, is a system with an organization that is
>not complex. This goes back to what Mikulecky found impossible to
>grasp: that there can be simple systems created out of complex
>components. But a system is not defined by it's parts, remember?
>
>Judith
>
>
>