Re: Reductionist philosophy

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

Jack,
So be it.
Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Jack
> Park
> Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 10:23 AM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: Reductionist philosophy
>
>
> I have thought about this for a while now. Everybody knows that.
>
> When Judith quotes her father as below: <quote>*"It's all in there," he
> said.</quote>
> I am profoundly reminded of the bible, koran, and talmud thumpers out
> there who are all saying "It's all in there."
> Game over. Please unsubscribe me.
> Jack
>
> *Judith Rosen wrote:
>
> > *I was away from the list for most of yesterday, and so missed the
> > explosion. I have to say, I think Tim is entirely justified in his
> > decision, especially on the basis of one sentence:*
> > **
> > Howard Pattee wrote: Why does the machine metaphor have to go?
> > **
> >
> > *All of Robert Rosen's work was generated because the scientific tools
> > he needed to answer his own questions in Biology did not exist. He
> > tried using the tools "on the shelf"
> > (physics/mathematics/chemistry/etc), making sure he educated himself
> > as to what they had been used for and what they COULD be used for...
> > and it was not possible. Once he ascertained that it was not possible
> > to deal with foundational questions in Biology with current scientific
> > methodology and approach, it was time to turn to the foundations of
> > that scientific methodology and approach and examine IT; looking for
> > the reasons why Biological systems should present such an impervious
> > territory to science, at anything deeper than a superficial level. *
> > **
> > *He documented all that he discovered, including his thought process,
> > his conclusions, and his proofs. He then used the tools he created to
> > answer not only his own foundational questions, but achieved a great
> > deal more than that, into the bargain. *
> > **
> > *Before he died, my father said to me that the written body of work
> > had, within it, all that anybody needed to continue the work. "It's
> > all in there," he said. Clearly, his mode of writing can be difficult
> > to follow. However, I have discovered that using a different mode
> > doesn't help with that and I think Howard's post is a case in point.
> > All of Robert Rosen's work /answers that very question./*
> > **
> > *How many times have I rephrased these same ideas??? Just in the last
> > couple weeks I found a new way to depict what is lacking in the
> > entailment patterns of machines.... sheesh! I'm done! I remember once
> > having a discussion with my Dad about his response to attacks on his
> > work. He was so unafraid-- and he never got mad. He said, "I'm not out
> > to convince anybody of anything. This isn't a religion. I'm not an
> > apostle. I don't care whether people believe it or not; that's not
> > what I'm here for. I'm doing what I want to do and I'm fulfilling a
> > duty to report what I find. End of story." He said that there comes a
> > time, after you say things once, then say them twice, when you have to
> > recognize that someone does not want to see it, does not want to hear
> > or let the ideas in. Howard is one of those who cannot let go of long
> > standing belief structures. I don't understand why he would subscribe
> > to this list! If my father, himself, couldn't get Howard to see what
> > he was talking about, what chance do I have???*
> > **
> > *After the Center at SUNY Buffalo was dismantled, and Dad went to
> > Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he wrote Anticipatory
> > Systems and Fundamentals of Measurement, in that order, although they
> > were published the other way around. This was a major breakthrough,
> > and was the culmination of the insights that began two years prior to
> > the move, during that sabbatical year he spent in Santa Barbara, at
> > the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. In retrospect, it
> > appears that most of Dad's work at Buffalo was just a prelude to the
> > really huge breakthroughs, and those breakthroughs led Robert Rosen in
> > a direction that old friends and colleagues could not always follow. I
> > find it rather sad and I'm relieved that my father is not here to know
> > this. It would hurt him. He considered Pattee a /friend/. *
> > **
> > *"I come, not to praise Caesar, but to damn him."*
> > **
> > *"Et tu, Brute?"*
> > **
> > *Robert Rosen would say, "Hey, guess what, old /friend... /I'm not
> > Caesar. And what do you think you're going to achieve now, with that
> > knife? I'm already dead! You can't kill the work. "*
> >
> > *Judith Rosen*
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> >     *From:* Howard Pattee <mailto:***>
> >     *To:* *** <mailto:***>
> >     *Sent:* Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:52 PM
> >     *Subject:* Re: [ROSEN] Reductionist philosophy
> >
> >     Judith and Tim,
> >
> >     As I said in my post beginning, I was expressing irritation at
> >     Rosen's labeling entire fields of science, whole classes of
> >     scientists as well as individual scientists as "reductionists" and
> >     criticizing their research strategies. My only point was to
> >     suggest that such labeling should not be propagated on Tim's list.
> >     I was agreeing with John that this blanket labeling is not fair. I
> >     don't like to be labeled as a reductionist or be told I have a
> >     "mindset" and I don't know anybody who does.
> >
> >     Rosen: "But above all, the machine metaphor (supported of course
> >     by the corpus of modern physics) is what drives, and justifies,
> >     the reductionism so characteristic of modern biology" [LI p. 21].
> >
> >     Judith: This is turning around what he actually said.
> >
> >     HP: What do you mean? This */is/* what he actually said. As you say:
> >
> >     Judith: He attributes the huge explosion of molecular biology
> >     development to a reductionist frame of reference. He's calling it
> >     like he sees it. You apparently don't agree, which is fine.
> >
> >     HP: What is wrong with molecular biology? Try to understand that
> >     doing detailed experiments is not necessarily the result of what
> >     you see as "a reductionist frame of reference" or "mindset." Even
> >     if it is, so what? Consider that it may be only one aspect of a
> >     carefully thought out strategy by very intelligent and expert
> >     biologists. For example, look at the detailed experiments on
> >     Caenorhabditis elegans
> >     http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/Dauer-World/index.html the
> >     nematode that we know more about than any other organism because
> >     of over 30 years of painstaking experiments on its DNA sequence
> >     and the development of its 959 cells from a single cell.
> >
> >     I do not agree with Rosen that, "the machine metaphor is what
> >     drives, and justifies" these biological experiments. The
> >     justification was much more complex, but the basic motivation is
> >     that C. elegans is a good "model organism" which is a key concept
> >     in biology, what Rosen should see as an analog system. From these
> >     detailed molecular mechanisms we have learned many things about
> >     hierarchical organization and function in human development,
> >     metabolic control, pattern recognition, ageing and death. ["You
> >     have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still
> >     worm."  Nietzsche's Zarathustra]
> >
> >     Judith: His whole point: Science needs to expand beyond what it
> >     has already developed (not "get rid of it"). In order to do that,
> >     the machine metaphor has to go. Period.
> >
> >     HP: Do you think science requires this ideological litmus test?
> >     Why does the machine metaphor have to go?  Why do you think the
> >     detailed models of molecular mechanisms in worms are in conflict
> >     with their higher level relational models of organization and
> >     function?
> >
> >     I repeat what I said: There are many beautiful physics and
> >     biological models out there that answer questions that are
> >     interesting and important. If they satisfy the modeling relation,
> >     it is irrelevant whether they can be fit into a reductionist
> >     metaphysics or not.
> >
> >     Howard
> >
> >
> >
> >     Try reading Rosen LI Sec. 11C, D, E  where he sounds like you
> >     can't do it that way. You can't fractionate phenotype or consider
> >     it a chemical concept. He says, "In this section and the next, we
> >     will consider the identification of somatic phenotype with
> >     chemistry as mandated by the sequence hypothesis. Our conclusion
> >     will be that it is false, unless chemistry itself is redefined"
> >     (p. 263). He says it is an "astonishing claim" that biological
> >     forms and morphogenesis are ultimately chemical. It's all a
> >     "terrible mistake." I'm abbreviating, but read the whole (pp.
> >     258-267) so you can't claim its out of context. I call this an
> >     unfair and irritating assessment.
> >
> >     As I said, I think it is because of Rosen was irritated that his
> >     wording was so caustic. Words have effects and his words produce a
> >     real disconnect here. Agreed, Rosen would not want to look at
> >     worms in such detail, and that's fine. But there are no terrible
> >     mistakes or false conclusions in the worm runners detailed
> >     experiments. Furthermore, the founder of C. elegans research,
> >     Sidney Brenner, has written about the complexity of this worm and
> >     understands as well as Rosen that detailed experiments are not
> >     enough to understand its organization. In fact, organization is
> >     now the focus of research. He is not a reductionist, nor are all
> >     of the hundreds of biologists who study worms.
> >
> >
> >     Howard
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>     HP: Reductionism is not a property of a model!
> >>
> >>     Actually, it is (if we leave the "ism" off the word). Even of a
> >>     relational model. Even of an "internal predictive model". Any
> >>     model is a reduction. But it's not reduction-"ism". That resides
> >>     in the modeler, who would then create models that are
> "reductionist".
> >>
> >>     HP: Reductionism is a relation between two or more models.
> >>
> >>     It can be this, but I think the statement would be more accurate
> >>     if it said "Reductionism is a relation between human perspective
> >>     and the universe, such that the human perspective mistakes the
> >>     sum-total of what it perceives for /what there is/." A
> >>     reductionist model would be one that is labeled "all there is"
> >>     and includes the name of some complex system.
> >>
> >>     And while I'm on the subject, I would like to dispell the notion
> >>     from Jack's post that Robert Rosen viewed reductionistic science
> >>     per se as "a form of cancer". I've never said that, nor did he.
> >>     What he said is that the machine metaphor makes the reductionist
> >>     mind-set equatable to "science" and everything not in that mode
> >>     is considered "soft" or unscientific. His point was that this
> >>     limits science to a study of simple systems, which leaves most of
> >>     the universe outside its purview. He felt that kind of attitude
> >>     was stupid, frankly, and I agree.
> >>
> >>     I have posted many times that Robert Rosen didn't view
> >>     "reductionism" as a "dirty word" or think it should be banned,
> >>     etc. His attitude was inclusional; we need all approaches. Just
> >>     don't limit your mind... He was accused of "trashing physics",
> >>     here on the list, and my response was that he was actually out to
> >>     "save" physics, and keep it the general science it purports to
> >>     be, by expanding it to include notions of relational causality
> >>     and the importance of organization in governing such relations in
> >>     the universe. Someone coming along, reading the archives, may not
> >>     see those posts and I feel such statements about Robert Rosen
> >>     must be rebutted, in the same form in which the statements are
> >>     made. Hence, my frustration with the need to repeat such things
> >>     again, here-- because these statements keep being made.
> >>
> >>     HP: Rosen uses reductionism as the general metaphysical belief
> >>     that all models are formally derivable from, or reducible to,
> >>     what Rosen calls a "largest model."
> >>
> >>     Rosen defines what you have described above as the outcome of
> >>     modeling simple systems. Their organizations are computable.
> >>     Reduction/ism,/  in contrast, is the general belief that all
> >>     SYSTEMS are of this type. Indeed, Reduction/ism/ is the belief
> >>     that organization confers no important information that cannot be
> >>     reconstituted from a throrough study of the parts.
> >>
> >>     HP: This "hard" reductionism is often associated with Laplacean
> >>     determinism that assumes everything can in principle be predicted
> >>     and explained by basic laws of physics.
> >>
> >>     I think you misunderstand what his beef is, Howard. His view was
> >>     that all models are a "reduction" but of course, the use of
> >>     modeling in science is not what makes a scientist "reductionist".
> >>     He came out and said as much, over and over again, in his work
> >>     and I have said it here on the list many times as well. A
> >>     reductionist approach is a mind-set; one which presumes that you
> >>     won't lose critical information that you can't get back, in
> >>     taking a system apart. That's directly a result of the machine
> >>     metaphor, which is alive and well in the foundations of science
> >>     today. The foundations are what he said have to change. The fact
> >>     that many scientists today are actively looking for new ways to
> >>     address some of the aspects Robert Rosen was seeking to address
> >>     is a nice development-- except they are not questioning the
> >>     foundations. They don't even look at what's there, or question
> >>     the reasons why certain things are considered "unscientific".
> >>     There will be very negative consequences to leaving the flaws in
> >>     place.
> >>
> >>     HP: Many postings on this list have apparently taken their cue
> >>     from Life Itself and misuse the phrase "reductionist model"
> >>     dismissively referring to physical and biological models.
> >>
> >>     It is clear that you do not like the material in Life, Itself,
> >>     Howard. You made that obvious quite some time ago. In fact, once
> >>     Dad moved to Nova Scotia, in 1975, you and he saw very little of
> >>     each other and his main scientific development was really just
> >>     taking flight. So, the biggest discoveries were yet to come, when
> >>     your "conversation" waned. It's a fact that his realization that
> >>     the foundations were at fault had several consequences. Among
> >>     them, it meant that he completely discarded the notions of
> >>     complexity built by von Neumann, for example-- and you seem to
> >>     find that utterly intolerable. To me, it looks perfectly logical
> >>     and justified. Dad's work was mostly foundational, after all. Von
> >>     Neumann's work is a causalty of the consequences of leaving the
> >>     flaws in the foundation in place; they get incorporated into the
> >>     logic of one's work.
> >>
> >>     Judith Rosen
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >