Re: Rosen cf. Kauffman

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

Ayten,

AA:
> How come could, these two scientists being contemporary and I
> guess knowing
> the work of each other, not think of  benefiting from each other and
> collaborate, if not when Rosen was alive, but now Kauffman could think of
> finding the missing something in the Rosen's work?? With all the knowledge
> around why could disciples of Rosen make an attempt to merge the two not
> close but perhaps complementary theories?

TG: Kauffman specifically references Rosen and "Life Itself" in
"Investigations" in at least two places; one where he agrees w/Rosen that
category theory may be the way to "mathematize the concept of an autonomous
agent" [p. 106] and the other where he mentions Rosen while discussing the
idea of "analogy between  formal proof and causal consequences" (i.e., a
modelling relation) [p. 136] But I did not see a mention of Rosen regarding
organization. As to combining the ideas of the two, I'd agree with Judith
that they probably can't be merged - they are not compatible.

AA:
> Therefore, can we not do the same
> by to applying Rosen's theory into practice in variety of fields which
> requires organization as their central concern by making the whole system
> (mostly complex) function synergistically? Are they naive
> questions or even
> so can they take put us on a right track?

TG: I suppose I'd be concerned with the kind of incompatibility mentioned
above generally being a problem and hindering such a goal. This is one
reason why I am interested in Aloisius' phenomenological calculus. It
provides an algebraic formalism using tensors and Hilbert spaces to
represent qualities of system. He has confirmed to me that he can represent
impredicative entailment structures as well. So, I suspect this formalism
may perhaps serve to act as a kind of bridge between relational and
non-relational models. Of course, this possibility is probably only so
because it is entirely algebraic and not analytic. It will be interesting to
see how much can be done algebraically, and then, what analytic models can
be drawn from the results.

Regards,
Tim