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Jamie, you contradict yourself in your criticisms. For
example:
Criticism 1.) I'd suggest you're falling prey to the
conventional rationale of science, Judith,
Criticism 2: you can't look to overthrow an established
order of thinking unless you provide -new- replacement capacities ..
Criticism 2 brings up a question: Who said anything about
"overthrowing"? I'm talking about "expanding" the paradigm to include
organizational aspects in human study of systems in the universe-- which was
what my father was also talking about. He never said that the current
paradigm must be destroyed! He said that the machine metaphor underlying it is
not appropriate, even where machines are concerned. He said that in order to
answer biological questions, science must discard the machine metaphor
entirely and, at the same time, must also expand to include
organizational aspects. Those two things are actually part of the same
process... But that doesn't mean that he thought reductionist methods
are "evil"... or always negative or even unhelpful... He was interested in
keeping the best of what we've already got and removing the limiting factors
which, he had determined, are based on misconceptions. I've tried to get
this set of points across on the list before, many times, many ways...
and I don't seem to be having any luck. I really don't know how to say it any
more clearly.
Incidentally, he DID provide "new-replacement-capabilities". That's
what his books were for; that's why he bothered to write them. As he said to me,
before he died; "It's all in there."
Your other criticisms also don't make sense to me, because for
example here: Natural systems don't -presume- singular "final cause"
criteria as things actualize into their plateaus of form and performance.
The environment may continuously generate dominant stable/dynamic
forms/functions, but evolution shows us that (sub)systems can be co-opted
into serving quite different, new, and novelly important uses.
That is a rewording of the exact argument I was making-- the one
you are using your rewording to criticize. So, I'm a little confuzzled by this.
My point was that modern science uses the machine metaphor as a theoretical
foundation, and yet machines, like a car, are not like naturally occurring,
self-organizing systems. One of the ways they differ is precisely in the way I
described, which your reworded paragraph also describes. I was laying my
own foundational wording to help people understand my
father's conclusion-- which is that the machine metaphor is
inappropriate to base all of science on.
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 8:52
AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Inequivalence of
models
> Judith Rosen wrote:
>
>> James Rose
wrote:
>> Car= mobile container
>> an entity may have a
majority usage (one final cause; transporter)
>> but it can also have
other 'final causes' which include
>> all possible use/application of
the nature of its components
>> -and- compounded/emerged
aspects.
>> cars have served as 'homes', beds for lovers,
ambulances,
>> changing rooms, delivery rooms & operating rooms,
eating rooms
>> it can also be thought of as a self-contained self
delivery system ..
>> which eventually drives itself to a recycling
center where its
>> composition can be de-structured for other uses
.. having subsequent
>> other 'final causes'.
> Yes, but
then it's not "a car". Cars were designed for a purpose, and their
>
organization reflects the purpose, but the purpose comes from outside the
system
> called "car". To change the use, which as you noted happens
rather often, is
> sort of like the "change-of-function" that my father
described in evolutionary
> processes in biology. "Re-purposing" a car,
though, isn't evolution as far as
> the car is concerned: the entailment
structures are all externally derived.
I'd suggest you're falling prey
to the conventional rational of science, Judith,
that "the presumption" of
what a thing/process is considered to be, -is- the total
or fullfilling
'accurate one'.
Natural systems don't -presume- singular "final
cause" criteria as things
actualize into their plateaus of form and
performance. The environment may
continuously generate dominant
stable/dynamic forms/functions, but evolution
shows us that
(sub)systems can be co-opted into serving quite different, new,
and novelly
important uses.
Feathers began as improved thermal insulators.
That they eventually became
co-opted for use as flight devices once changes
in bone structure and muscle
configurations happened, was an exploration of
the form/function phase-space
of anatomy ... the native operation of
"evolution" (c)Rose, 1973.
> Most cars make lousy
beds for lovers-- lousy delivery rooms... lousy changing
> rooms...
lousy homes. And the main reason is because cars were not designed for
>
those functions. Most of the entailment has to do with transportation and
the
> body shape this is usually accomplished in is folded ("sitting").
(Which
> probably explains why cars are not too bad for eating
in!)
But this night is not like all other nights, and sometimes 'we
recline'.
> But, again, when a car is re-purposed like that,
it's not anything about the car
> that's making it happen, it's about
the human need to put a car to other uses.
> When a hermit crab uses a
dead snail's leftover shell as a "house", that has
> almost nothing to
do with the snail anymore (and it's certainly not about the
> snail's
evolution)-- it's about the hermit crab and ITS
>
requirements/entailment-relations/etc.
So that's the fuller pictures of
"complexity .. via alternative/optional
entailments"
isn't it?!
And most definitely, that snail is -still- involved.
> I think
it's also worth reiterating the concept of "chimera" that was
discussed
> at length in most of Robert Rosen's books. I tend to
conclude, based on that,
> that all human-created machines are really
"sub-systems" of a larger chimerical
> system: human being plus
technology/tool. Unlike the snail shell that the hermit
> crab
repurposed (which will reveal nothing about the hermit crab's use of
it
> once the crab outgrows it and moves on to a new shell), a car has
all its
> original entailments intact and this makes using machines
(which human beings
> create for our own purposes) very bad "models" for
natural systems in general.
But you are tilting at a dominating
windmill and aren't providing a total
alternative other than to say, 'this
new thinking is more holisitic'. That
isn't enough. You aren't
delineating guaranteed system functionality , or
creative new-organization
potential , or pattern identifications. You are only
emphasizing
chaos, rather than complexity. and denigrating the power
of
'predictability'. These have their roles in the world, very
important ones,
and you can't look to overthrow an established order of
thinking unless you
provide -new- replacement capacities .. which for
better or worse .. have
to be at least as functionall competent as 'the bad
"old" system'.
If you can't then there's no incentive to change, be it
science or a new
kind of clothing to wear. Get my
drift?
> Judith
Jamie
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