Re: What is special about humans?

[Jerry Zhu <***>]

Hi Judith,

Thanks for the reply.  I just got the book "essays on
life itself" and start to check the terms to keep up
with the discussions here and familarize myself with
Rosen theory. It is good to have you as a "live"
resource in exploring Rosen theory.

It's been for six years in this navigation of
complexity start off management context into biology,
philosophy, foundational research in language at
present. This leads me to much more foundational and
sweeping issues that regenerate the unfufilled
promises of General Systems Theory in a fresh
scientific inquiry different in its entirety.  From
evolutionary standpoint, I believe that there is a
unity of science -- an all-sweeping ontological stance
of living universe from which derives various
epistemological theories of diverse symmetry breaks.
Different from GST's interdisciplline communication
attempt and the Einstein's effort of unifying the four
forces, the new framework would be one that rethink
the relationship of induction and deduction in
creating customized scientific theories.  My current
efforts has been in this direction.  I would
contribute along this lines if it its to the interests
of this list.

I have looked up the Rosen's book for terms you
mentioned such as Rosen's notion of complexity and
anticipatory systems and do have questions and
definitions of life based on other authors as well as
my understanding. I hope I can address these issues as
well as particulars to your post below at later times
whenever a chance.

Nice to "meet" you and have a great new year ahead.

Jerry


--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

> Hi Jerry,
> 
> I meant to reply to your original post and the day
> got away from me 
> yesterday. The questions you have raised are ones
> that I've given a 
> lot of thought to, myself. Here are a few of my own
> tentative 
> conclusions on these subjects:
> 
> Coming at this from a lifetime spent looking at the
> world alongside 
> Robert Rosen, I view living organisms in terms of
> his notion of 
> Complexity. In fact, since nearly all of my
> childhood to adult "Why?" 
> questions were asked of him, my entire way of
> looking at the world is 
> a combination of his answers and my own mind (which
> is somewhat like 
> his although diluted, sad to say, but I compensate
> as best I can with 
> a few talents he didn't have). Anyway, I say all
> that by way of 
> explanation for what follows.
> 
> The way I evaluate "dimensions" has to do with
> complexity. So, living 
> systems are already far greater than three
> dimensions. As such, any 
> living system is four-dimensional because of the
> integration of 
> multiple aspects of time and context into the
> organization. All living 
> systems are "Anticipatory Systems". So a single
> celled plant is every 
> bit as "four-dimensional" as a single-celled
> bacterium or a 
> protozoan...  It's true, though, that multi-cellular
> organisms have 
> "more complexity" to their organization than
> single-cellular ones do. 
> (I still haven't come up with a better way to phrase
> that; using the 
> word "more" is not really appropriate.) Organisms
> with a central 
> nervous system and brain are another step, allowing
> for an ability we 
> refer to as "instinct". Organisms with a central
> nervous system and 
> intelligence are another step beyond that. And what
> is special about 
> humans (and I leave the door open to the possibility
> that we are not 
> the only species on this planet with these
> attributes) is 
> consciousness. The way I look at these things,
> intelligence is merely 
> an ability to learn and encode memory (the ability
> to "think" and 
> problem-solve.) Consciousness is far more than
> intelligence; it's the 
> ability to think about thinking.  Consciousness
> gives us an ability to 
> think outside of time, to think in abstract ways, to
> imagine, to 
> question-- in ways very different from simple
> problem-solving... I 
> regard consciousness as an emergent property every
> bit as significant 
> as "life" (and consciousness likewise is the
> collective effect of a 
> certain kind of extremely complex organization).
> Consciousness 
> involves time in ways that life doesn't, even though
> living systems 
> are already extremely complex systems with multiple
> aspects of time 
> co-organized into them.
> 
> So I think consciousness gives us access to a
> fifth-dimension. Each 
> dimension is infinite and can also interact with
> other dimensions to 
> some unknown degree. I don't have any idea how many
> dimensions there 
> are, and it really doesn't matter to me. I do
> believe there are more 
> than five, and I believe life and consciousness are
> the means by which 
> to approach such matters. We know so little about
> consciousness itself 
> that the subject is wide open to interpretation. I
> agree with George 
> Harrison, for example, that "there are more aspects
> to consciousness 
> than just waking, sleeping, dreaming..."
> 
> About your other comment:
> Jerry Zhu wrote: Look like
> management and social science are not current thread
> of discussion.  But enjoy everything here.
> 
> If you have never read the substantial preliminary
> and conclusionary 
> material in my father's book, "Anticipatory
> Systems", I urge you to do 
> so. He wrote at length about social systems and
> other human collective 
> systems like economics and politics. He felt that
> biology was the only 
> place to derive our approach to these kinds of
> systems because they 
> are complex systems generated by the effects of life
> and of 
> consciousness (which are also complex).  Because he
> wrote about these 
> subjects, I would venture that Tim wouldn't consider
> such discussions 
> off-topic, so if you have questions about this, go
> ahead and post 
> them.
> 
> Cheers,
> Judith Rosen
> 
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Jerry Zhu
>   To: ***
>   Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 11:43 PM
>   Subject: Re: [ROSEN] What is special about humans?
> 
> 
>   Hi Steve,
> 
>   Good points. What you raised worth thinking. 
> There
>   are unicellular life that is stationery. Life
> simply
>   evolves into a different direction other than
> moble.
> 
>   There is an interesting correlation between the
> world
>   brought forth and the structure of nervous system.
>   That is the larger the world brought forth, the
> more
>   centralized the nervous system, and the more
> advanced
>   the evolution.
> 
>   I forgot to mention that social systems, as M&V
>   defined as third order autopoiesis, bring forth a
>   world of five dimensions.  The more centralized
> the
>   decision making the longer the time dimension in
>   strategic plan. In this sense today's government
> and
>   business organizations need to devolve by
> redefining
>   decision processes and power relations. Look like
>   management and social science are not current
> thread
>   of discussion.  But enjoy everything here.
> 
>   Jerry
> 
> 
> 



                
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