Re: Rosen cf. Kauffman

[Ayten Aydin <***>]

Hi! John M,
All started from our dialogue that led us to a comparison between RR and SK
and the rest. As an afterthought to my latest post sent a moment ago and the
last point therein (a ?) as an attempt to fill in the missing link of RR's
theory with the rest of the scientific society and the rest, I now suggest
directly you, as a musician as well, if you can make an attempt to apply the
RR's complexity theory (HP may help with his more intimate understanding of
the RR's mind) to a musical work. More precisely, I would say to Wagner's
parsifal, as what we perhaps need a "Pure Fool' to help us to go out of the
impass we seem to be in now. This can only be suggested by a fool/ignorant
like me, but I am serious. What do you say?
Ayten
Ayten
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Pattee" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 8:23 AM
Subject: Rosen cf. Kauffman


> At 11:23 AM 1/24/05 +0200, Ayten wrote:
> [snip]
> >After having written these passages, I asked myself the question of how
> >close Kauffmann and Rosen in their views on this question of What is
Life? I
> >also further asked myself if the main actors of this list as Tim, John K,
> >and Judith consider making a comparison of these two minds and show for
us
> >similarities and dissimilarities .  .  .
>
> HP: Here are some of my own comparisons between the minds of Rosen and
> Stuart Kauffman. I have known them both personally and professionally for
> many years. But first, since in the past Tim and Judith have
misinterpreted
> some of my critical opinions as a personal attack, I must emphasize that
> any critical comments are only my academic opinion and do not in any way
> detract from my close personal friendship and high regard for them both.
>
> John M's intuition is correct. Here are two different types of scientific
> minds that start from different backgrounds and work from divergent points
> of view, ending up with completely different types of models. Kauffman
> began as an MD but was attracted to experimental developmental biology.
> Then, largely because of a single computer program, and with no
significant
> mathematical background, he morphed into a theoretical biologist focusing
> on self-organization, origin of life, non-Darwinian evolution, and
> development.
>
> Rosen began studying wet biology in high school, but his instincts and
> abilities were for mathematics rather than experimental biology. After
> studying math and physics, it was largely because of the influence of
> Rashevsky's relational models that he finally found that his deepest
> interest was in how our epistemology and our assumptions about scientific
> models influence our concept of life. As members of this list know, his
> basic conclusion, developed as an analogy with the creative open-ended
> "corpus of mathematics," was that (as in mathematics) formal (computable,
> purely syntactic) models are too "impoverished" to capture the creative
> open-ended novelties of life.
>
> Kauffman's basic computer program (an elaboration of previous work by
Ashby
> and Walker in England) is remarkable for three things, its simplicity, its
> initial randomness, and the richness of the interpretations he gives its
> results. Kauffman originally discovered these computed results entirely
> empirically and largely unexpectedly. The basic model is a randomly
> connected network of random (boolean function) nodes started with random
> initial conditions -- i.e., maximum disorder. The discrete states of the
> network are just the current values of the nodes, and the next state is
> completely deterministic (unless externally mutated). The well-known (and
> now mathematically understood) result for low connectivity is that the
> paths in the exponentially enormous state-space follow transient paths
> collapsing into relatively few, short, stable limit cycles. Higher
> connectivities lead to a finite analog of chaotic dynamics.
>
> This behavior with various elaborations has been interpreted by Kauffman
in
> many ways: 1) as self-organization from complete disorder, 2) as a first
> step in the origin of life, 3) as epigenetic canalization in development,
> 4) as the self-organizing structures on which Darwinian natural selection
> can operate, but cannot override, and 5) by allowing variation in
> connectivities and by coupling nets, a model of meta-evolution where
> natural selection (coevolution) chooses the "edge of chaos" as the most
> adaptive condition.
>
> It is fair to say that Rosen and Kauffman never formed more than a civil
> relationship that is usual at professional meetings. Kauffman has much
more
> personal ambition than did Rosen and achieved a notoriety that in my
> opinion (and Rosen's and many others) is not justified by hard evidence
> supporting his imposing claims for his models. Rosen saw the behavior of
> random nets as an obvious example of the generic behavior of discrete
> dynamical systems. He saw Kauffman's many interpretations as simply
> illustrating that the same formalism can be encoded any way you like.
>
> On the other hand, Kauffman has suggested biological observables that
would
> allow empirical tests of his models. His books include biological
evidence,
> and are written with conventional language that biologists understand well
> enough to critically discuss. Kauffman criticizes Rosen (as have I and
> others) for his imposing claims written in a language that few biologists
> understand, and that have as yet suggested no biological observables that
> could allow a verifiable model.
>
> I don't think any of these criticisms, while probably true, are
> scientifically relevant. My current view is that Rosen and Kauffman are
> thinking on different levels. Rosen's thinking is primarily on an
epistemic
> model. One might call it a general principle that any biological model
must
> satisfy to answer a "Why?" type of question. After all, the modeling
> relation itself is a model. It is based on the Hertz condition that is not
> itself empirically verified except that a model must satisfy it to give us
> the answers we want.  An analogy is the symmetry principles of physical
> models. These principles are not empirically testable. They are epistemic
> conditions we discover we must place on empirical models to give us the
> types of explanation or answer to the questions we ask.
>
> Kauffman, on the other hand, has a simple computer simulation that behaves
> by various interpretations like developing organisms and like an evolving
> population. If I had to say it in < 20 words, Kauffman has empirical
models
> without a specific epistemology; Rosen has an epistemology without (as
yet)
> specific empirical models.
>
> Howard
>
>