Re: Rosen, Kauffman and compatibility

[John M <***>]

Dan,
it was long ago when I last received that much agreement from somebody whose
opinion I value.
You know me: I don't just relax in that lukewarm comfort to agree, I look
for improvements.
Let me interspace some re-remarks below: as (JM:)

John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: Rosen, Kauffman and compatibility


> John M,
>
> Thinking more on my own words and tone and post to
> you from yesterday, I realize I did not even follow my
> own advice. I really can't complain or criticize your
> distinctions and discriminations, and in fact I forgot to
> mention a few you made that I see as deeply important
> and would like to hear more about:
>
> John M wrote:
>
> > JM:
> > Hindsight. The ways of nature are NOT according to our consent or
> > post factum explanations. The word (I try not to use) "bifurcatio" is an
> > open potential of nature.
>
> Good point. Still, don't you think the open potential is
> general, related to complexity and to life and that all
> these - open causality/potential, complexity and life -
> are to be expected even a priori? Shouldn't we expect
> the unexpected?
(JM:)
Expect it, if you know ALL (distant - unknown included)
potentially influencing circumstances. The 'mistakes' of
reductionistic science come from "expectations" based
on insuffiently cut model-contents, to be proven later on.
That leads to false theories, paradoxes (Nobel prizes ??).
>
> Are we really surprised if we are
> always certain to be surprised? I think life has the...
      (((JM:"is something -text - missing??)))
> figured out and in anticipation knows how to succeed
> and survive and thrive anyway, perhaps even as
> spurred on and enhanced by this aspect of the world:
> life doesn't just weather surprise, it harnesses and
> eats it up and even goes looking for more.
>
> > JM;:
> > Autocatalysis is used in a very special sense: nothing 'autocatalyses'
by
> > itself, not even collectively, without the impact of environment (i.e.
the
> > rest of the world ensemble) which eliminates the "auto". If I have a
system
> > that does autocatalyse: it is still in the state of its formation before
> > reaching the 'changed' structure (organization).
>
> Great point. I once wrote to James Lovelock and told
> him my conceptual model, largely borrowed from
> Howard Odum but figured out via a semi-independent
> route, of life originating as coupled complementary
> process like a symbiosis of proto-auto-troph (the
> composer sub-function of life) and proto-hetero-troph
> (the decomposer sub-function of life) and Lovelock
> wrote back that it sounded good, but I "need a role
> for the environment". Bernie Patten a leader in
> ecosystem theory and network analysis says his big
> question is What is Environment? So cool to be a
> complement or opposite to Schrodinger et al's - What
> is Life? I think you are right on to keep environment
> integral.
(JM:)
I did not spell out that IMO a 'live' organism (more than
just you or me) is an integral PART of the environment,
in total 2-way exchange of effects. I think JK was writing some time ago
about natural changes WE DID instigate...(both positive and negative sense
changes).
Sub-functions (of life) are just deterministic processes of the totality.
Our distinctions.
How 'bout proto-endo-trophity? Some (StK for one) would call it
Self-Organization(???) I think.
>
> But, the self part I think is still important - it may just
> be that it is not localized or particulate but is extensive
> and relational - it may be the life-environment relation
> that self-catalyzes.
(JM:)
I don't know about a 'relation' that catalyzes. Facilitate
maybe, if we agree in the "life" part. See above.
>
> > JM:
> > I go with Bohm's "order": whatever we know about the system.
> > K's "threshold" what I call boundaries secure it - in our present
> > views (limited models). I don't know about the 'funtropies'. Nature
> > has mpore ways to go than what we approve (or even know about).
> > The rest is not my table.
> > Regards
> > John M
>
> I highly recommend looking in to syntropy. It may be
> another dead end or suffer the fate of elan vital or
> 4th Law of Thermo or etc. etc. but I don't think so. I
> think it "has legs" and will be able to go the long haul.
> I also evangelize about it as it is "what the world needs
> now", a nice missing piece to balance entropy for mind
> and science (in addition to love, as the song says).
(JM:)
Balance WHAT?? To the nth time: I hold this ugly word,
entropy, as a >200 yo coinage of sweated out explanation
for some poorly understood observational theories in some
limited model view of the then budding science with the
then available epistemic cognitive inventory and methods.
It has been revamped more than 12 times since then and
nobody had the guts officially to say: the emperor is naked.
>
> Dan
>
(JM:)
Your yesterday's post was a bit disturbing to me: I used to be a
colloid-chemist and know that oil and water CAN be united - into an
emulsion, where the 2 phases are more difficult to distinguish yet they ARE
different.
And separate. The key word is 'surface tension' - when it comes to diverging
theories you can omit 'surface'.
Alloys, however, are of compatible different similars.
To the clear-water totality-view of RR a synthetic view  - based on
limited-model components oil is always incompatible.
 "...to agree to disagree harmoniously." is a matter of civility and does
not mitigate between positio0ns.

cheers
John M