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Judith Rosen wrote: That wasn't really what I was asking. My question is:
How does science empirically verify life as a quality or property of a living
organism? It cannot be measured directly, so how do they empirically verify it?
Howard Pattee wrote: We just try all the tests we can think of. I don't see
how your question can be answered without also answering the big question: What
is a living organism?
Exactly! So why is it such a surprise that to empirically verify some aspect of life or living system organization is also currently difficult (although not impossible)? "Closed to efficient causation" is actually easier to verify than "life" is, it seems to me. If Robert Rosen discovered it, it's obviously connected to
observables. The observables are available to everyone. Perhaps the way to
"verify it" is to try and disprove it. I invite you to try. If it CAN be
disproven, then is SHOULD be.
HP: I think of it like the epistemic principles in physics, like the requirement that all empirically verifiable models (laws) obey invariance principles. Judith: How would you define an "invariance principle"? HP: This is what the epistemology of physics requires for ideal objective models. Objective just means freedom from subjective influence or effects on the lawful properties of the system being modeled. Invariant means invariant with respect to the state (time frame, location, speed, state of mind, language, culture, etc.) of individual subjects or observers. Clearly, all our individual observations are subjective just because it is the observer who must decide what, when, and how to make measurements, and the resulting data will depend on the state of the observer. Laws are discovered by finding the invariant relations among the data from individual subjective measurements. So, basically "invariant," as it applies here, is a
subjective judgement. Isn't it true that the resulting data will not
only be influenced by the state of individual observers, but also
such things as: the mode of measurement, the application of the mode, the
mental models of the observer who's doing the measuring, the mental models of
the observer who's doing the interpretation of the data, the criteria/rules by
which the data are being measured or interpreted, and so on, etc.? So they start
with admittedly "subjective" data and try to subtract that out by adding more
subjective input. The result is labeled "scientific objectivity" and scientific
"laws" are based on it. That logic appears to be somewhat flawed.
My point is that the insistence on nailing down some kind of
epirical "proof" or measurement of "closed to efficient causation" is likely to
be as unrealistic as trying to nail down a measurement of "life" in an
organism. But physics doesn't deny that organisms are alive. I think one of the
main things that needs to be developed for doing science in the Rosennean
Paradigm is a set of new modes of assessment. Science cannot measure or weigh a
"relation" and the phrase "closed to efficient causation" is a description of a
series of relations that feeds back into itself in an unending entailment loop.
I further think that science is inconsistent in enforcing such prohibitions
(like the requirement for empirical proof of existence) as is the case with
"proof of life".
HP: I would say you have syntax and semantics backwards. Physical laws are expressed as syntactic formalisms. That is where invariance can be tested by using the symmetries of the formalism (like time-reversal). The meanings given to the symbols in the model, the semantics, is what the empirics (encodings, observations, measurements) provide. Perhaps... But I think it's also possible that you are unaware of
the semantics lurking in the "syntax" bottle. You can't trust the label.
Frankly, I think it's ALL semantics. "Pure" syntax, like
"total" objectivity, is a figment of human imagination.
Judith
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