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Re: Biology

Steve,
I would agree with this. Not only biology, but social science, ethics, culture, policy, i.e., humanism perhaps. By putting life back into nature in a scientifically acceptable way, we will all gain immeasurably, throughout all of our social systems and in better management of our natural heritage and other species. The power of a world view is that it can completely transform the way society functions. Right now there are few places one can look in Western society and not see the machine metaphore hard at work, with all the trappings of linear causalities, accountability as if nature is inherently accountable, command and control management, performance measures that don't measure anything meaningful, etc. We do not yet understand complexity as a society, much to our psychological and experiential peril; whereas many cultures that do understand it, mostly native cultures, have tended to overlook mechanism as a useful tool on the material side. The proper balance is what I think has to be achieved. The benefits of the mechanistic view are quite clear, along with creeping problems as we get too much of it. The benefits of complex thinking now need to be made clear, along with how it can be developed without creating yet another war.
JK

Steve Johnson wrote:

Re point#4: Another example is biology, and whether
biology is simply a
subset of modern physics or if biology has some
uniqueness that would
require physics to be altered (enlarged) in order to
accomodate biology.

I did not mention Biology only because no one in their
right mind would suggest that the Cartesian/Newtonian
paradigm has done anything for Biology. It is in
Biology where it fails most spectacularly and where
Rosen's ideas find most receptive ground. 

The question was about why Physics as a discipline
refuses to recognize the limitations elaborated by
Rosen. My point was that  the reason for it is that
unlike the case of Biology, existing Newtonian
paradigm actually works well in many areas of physics
according to the criteria that Physicists use to
measure the effectiveness of a paradigm (again
catch-22). On top of that Physics can boast that their
existing paradigm has produced a long list of
practical achievements:  electricity, transistors,
computers, TVs, cell phones etc. (And lots of nasty
things too).

Mainstream Biologists till now have not produced
produced anything except naming animals with Latin
names and categorizing them. Nowdays they are busy
naming parts of the chicken genome. Thus the challenge
of the Rosennean paradigm is more formidable since the
edifice being challenged is erected on borrowed
foundations.

When Rosen's ideas find acceptance it will probably
not be through challenging Physics edifice head on but
by producing spectacular achievements in the realm of
Biology.


- Steve





--- Tim Gwinn <***> wrote:



Steve,

Re point#3: ...what happened to #3? :)

Re point#4: Another example is biology, and whether
biology is simply a
subset of modern physics or if biology has some
uniqueness that would
require physics to be altered (enlarged) in order to
accomodate biology. The
biologist Ernst Mayr's latest book "What Makes
Biology Unique?" (Cambridge
Univ. Press 2004) attempts to delineate biology as
an autonomous science,
not reducible to modern physics; as well as
discussions of teleology and
final causes, the historical conflation of analysis
and reductionism, etc
The structure of his arguments are not identical to
Rosen's but I find it
interesting that these are arguments that continue
to be made in biology.

Re point #5: It is also something of a catch-22
situation: who will develop
further the Rosennean paradigm into this "trusty
toolbox" if many of those
best-equipped to do so are first awaiting the
existence of that trusty
toolbox prior to utilizing the paradigm?

Regards,
Tim



-----Original Message-----
From: ROSEN Forum


[mailto:*** Behalf Of Steve


Johnson
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 9:34 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: Fundamental problems in Physics


I'm not qualified to wade in to this heated debate


but


I felt compelled to make a couple of comments.

1. I think Howard is definitely one of the top
contributors to the quality of the discussion on


this


list and he clearly respects Rosen immensely as he
seemingly knows all of his writings by heart.


Based on


several of Howard's papers I read on his site it's
obvious that he is not a devotee of the machine
metaphor. I can also certainly believe that


physicists


that Howard knows and communicates with are well


aware


of the limitations of the machine metaphor and as
Howard put it "honestly strive to escape the
limitations of the whatever abstractions happen to


be


popular" (quoting from memory). One would


certainly


expect this to be true if only due to (a)
self-selection, and (b) due to education by Howard
including references to Rosen, Hertz, his own and
others' work.

2. However, from personal experience I can affirm


that


Physics as a discipline is definitely cartesian
through and through if the way it teaches its


young


generation is any indicator. I'm not a scientist


now


so I cannot speak for how it is at the cutting


edge


but the way Physics (even Quantum Mechanics) is


taught


in the top academic institutions is definitely
confined to the state-based  paradigm in the sense
that Rosen criticized. Morever, epistimological
critiques of the paradigm are never prominently
offered (maybe as a study of Thomas Kuhn if you're
lucky). I still have several friends in the PhD
programs in Physics and Chemistry and what they do
most of the time is measure observables and crunch
various forms of differential rate equations on
computers.

4. Physics is actually a mild case of this


because, as


Howard noted, in Physics there many areas where
"traditional approach" is actually extremely


effective


in terms of commutativity of the modelling


relation.


It gets far more rediculous in Social Sciences and
Econmics where people put themselves through


bizzare


contortions to apply the 19th century physcis


toolbox


of differential rate equations and various


constraint


optimization techniques to everything under the


sun


regardless of how much sense it makes.

5. I suspect that this is less due to a conspiracy


to


keep the Rosennean view out by vested interests


but


more due to the fact that regular working


scientists


(number crunching brains of burden) do not see
immediate application of the Rosennean view to


their


daily lives even if they took the considerable


effort


to understand it. For those who did, I suspect, it


is


like a beautiful dream. After thinking about these
matters a physicist may agree with Rosen and then


sigh


and think to himself: "Oh well, that's nice, but


now I


have to go and type my differential equation into
Mathematica because I have this paper due and so


on."


The Rosennean philosophy will have to be developed


by


others to come up with a trusty toolbox before the
regular Joe scientist will see its value.

- Steve




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