Re: Empirics and Life

[John M <***>]

Dear Dan,
Are you sure that there is a 'meaning' to life? Or you just talk about OUR
ideas, how WE think about it?
Then again:
"Saving the world"
for what? for our species' survival/success? that is highly
counterproductive for "the world". Gaia will retort.
With all that stupidity what our overenlarged brain instigated we are on an
impending suicidal course. Is the 20m people of Mexico City an upper limit?
I imagined the amount of human waste to be disposed of there.
Mao taught: what the world needs is a "good(?)" nuke war, the 10% survivers
will build a nice commi world.
(No ref, just hearsay).

John M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: Empirics and Life


> Howard and Judith,
>
> An interjection here from listening in...
>
> Howard Pattee wrote:
> > Judith,
> >
> > I don't think you understood what I was aiming at. I was trying to
> > illustrate how physicists narrowly define objectivity, and why it is not
> > really inconsistent with your more general view that everything is
> > ultimately subjective. As I said, that is not the issue we should be
> > discussing. All physicists really worry about is satisfying the Hertzian
> > condition for all possible observers. That much I think Rosen would
> > agree is necessary for a good model. That is why he spent so much time
> > clarifying what the modeling relation is in more detail. The
> > controversial issue is what types of formal model and what types of
> > encodings (observables) actually can satisfy the Hertzian condition for
> > living organisms. He shows that the Newtonian state-determined dynamics
> > and simple physical observables cannot. I agree. In my opinion, the
> > relevant problem is that we as yet have no specific Rosennian models of
> > organisms.
> >
> > I suggested that we need to work on clarifying the type of model Rosen
> > had in mind beyond his abstract graphs. In my opinion, they are general
> > epistemic models from which we need to derive more detailed models
> > specific enough to test by experiments.
> >
> > Howard
>
> The models or hypotheses they pose may not be testable
> by experiment. If experiment depends on control for
> meaningfulness (have to control the variables involved,
> hold "all else constant", all else being equal, otherwise no
> clear link between treatments and results, causes and effects)
> and if control as in truncation from other perhaps infinite
> influences is impossible, then experiment in the traditional
> sense of a crucial, objectivist test may be out the window.
> In the field of models for climate change this has been
> acknowledged - that crucial testing cannot be done, nor can
> model validation. Rastetter called this type of problem
> "trans-scientific" (not sure if he was the first). The people
> developing syntropy from Luigi Fantappie have said the
> same about syntropy which depends on the future to
> determine the present - you can't develop or test such
> science in the traditional, experimental way.
>
> But, what is another way beyond experiment? On that I
> agree with Howard that there is room for contribution and
> creative work, and (my preference) collaborative in a spirit
> of harmonious teamwork (more fun that way). All under
> my dual research headings that I think Dr. Rosen may
> have liked, What is the Meaning of Life, and How to Save
> the World.
>
> Dan