Re: Is there a "largest complex system"?

[John Kineman <***>]

Judith,

With great respect, as you know, I think we may have to accept differing 
opinions on this. But if it helps, I am speaking of an extreme inference 
- extending the ideas to the absolute. This is usually useful to see the 
general applicability or acceptability of the assumptions of a theory. 
When one does that (something that physicists are quite used to doing, 
by the way) one is actually discussing what a particular idea implies 
about the nature of  "reality." I went there because I think it can help 
resolve the discussion with Howard about what physicists think and if 
this is different from what Rosen thought. I think the difference is in 
the implicit belief about reality - a general reluctance that Rosen was 
pointing out, for most scientists to accept the depth of what complexity 
means -- that the exceptions to complexity are formal constructs, not 
natural systems, even though natural systems can behave very much like a 
simple system for a while (as in classical states).

But I'll drop it is if is problematic. We agree on so many of the 
practical applications, my perhaps unique proclivity to go to the 
philosophical and metaphysica extreme may not be necessary.  I of course 
agree that we can point to things that appear to be separate to us and 
are for any measurable practical purpose from our sensory and temporal 
point of view.

But, if I can try one last time to make the point, if one agrees that a 
system can be defined through time, in other words, if it is valid to 
say that a system we identified yesterday can be identified today and 
called the same system (like the solar system, a car, etc.), with 
perhaps different configuration, then it is possible to consider that 
system as it goes all the way back to its origin, and the origin of its 
components, i.e., the begining of time. In that case, one must conclude 
that all systems are connected by a common origin of the universe. Even 
an infinite experiential universe, which my own model suggests, requires 
that all local space must be connected in a grand whole. At that level, 
the universe itself must be a general system with all its components 
related in some way. As Carl Sagan said, "we are all made of star 
stuff." The point is that what we call a system, in order to identify 
some part of this grand whole, is by definition an abstraction (whether 
the "we" is we-humans/scientists or we-life or rabbits, etc.), and the 
only completely whole system we can point to is the system of 
everything. This also relates to the ideas discussed last summer about 
why there may be no truely closed systems, i.e., closed in all respects. 
Same idea. Rosen argued this case in Essays in the chapter on Schrodinger.

I think we may be more in agreement regarding the practicalities of 
system definition, where one can think of a system as being separate 
from its outside.

John

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