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Ayten,
I am not sure if
this relates very directly to your comments, but reading your thoughts brought
the following to mind so....here goes.
One of the things
I have become much more aware of after reading Rosen is the degree to
which potential niches are created as unintended side-effects of
implementing planning. In my view, something E becomes a niche when an organism
S interacts with E in such a way as to improve some quality q of S (such as
survivability, fecundity, etc., where the meaning of "improve" is thus tied to
the particular quality chosen). The something E is in some sense "larger"
than S.
The problem is to
know how E interacts with S and affects q positively. Roughly, when
will q(f(e) * g(s)) > q(s) ? There are several problems here. The
first is one Rosen pointed out long ago in FM: knowing the two functions f(e)
and g(s) will generally not include enough information to tell you about the
behavior of g(s) in interaction with f(e). The second is the case where q(s) =
0. That is, where S does not have some quality or behavior q until it is in
interaction with E. In that case, q arises as a novelty from the interaction -
often it is an unexpected consequence.
Another problem is
simply knowing g and f: what are the possible ways in which two systems can
interact? Sometimes, we might have example situations to work from, but
often, we can't create an experimental situation ahead of time for testing. Do
our (U) prior interactions with E (or S) - that is, knowing how a
system U "sees" E (or S) - inform us as to how S will "see"
E? This is exacerbated in the case of humans where the degrees of freedom of
interaction are so large, particularly when we utilize chimeric relations to
expand those degrees of freedom at will. If there is no g(s) which will interact
positively with f(e) (i.e., q(f(e) * g(s)) =< q(s)), then we might
create a chimeric relation with some other system C (e.g., a tool) which will,
such that: q(f(e) * (g(s) * h(c))) > q(s). But even other organisms utilize
chimeric relations, so the range of possibilities are not unique to
humans.
Even for
anticipatory control, the above problems exist. The predictive model must
attempt to incorporate solutions to these, by determining:
1) the
behavior of f(e) * g(s) from the incomplete information from f(e) and
g(s) separately,
2) the
possibilities for f and g based on interactions of another system U
with E and S separately,
3) the
possibilities for C and h, and the resultant (g(s) * h(c)), when C is usually
unentailed from either E or S,
4) the
possibilities for novelty: when q(s) = 0,but q(f(e) * g(s)) >
0,
5) the effect of
delta-q (the change in q as a result of such interactions) on the overall
(eco)system in question, which may be beneficial, detrimental, or a combination
of the two.
These kinds of
niche issues crop up in social, economic, political situations, as well as
in forests and bays. Exploiting the tax code or subsidy programs,
entrepreneurial novel services to large organizations, are a few that come
to mind.
I'll stop
here....enough rambling thoughts for now.
Regards,
Tim
Dear Judith,
In reference to your following quotation and the further
clarifications and information provided these days by you and Tim I have a few
reflections to make:
"He used a high-tech camera as
an example of a machine with anticipation built in. He recommended that our
modes of government and city planning, social system analysis, etc, all be
examined for ways to build in a "feed-forward" control system rather than
purely feed-back. It's important to note that while all living systems are
anticipatory they also have the capability for purely reactive behavior as
well. That's something all systems possess. But anticipatory controls are
superior under most circumstances because they prevent the system from
entering an "error state". An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure!"
You know that I am not a biologist but am
very much interested in understanding well what is still to be
uncovered from those still hidden within the Rosen treasure.
To make the new entry more digestable for me, I am each
time interpreting every piece of concept and knowledge
continuously flowing from your end (you and Tim) into my own
built-in professional and personal bagage and gradually unfolding.
I usually find them compatible and reflecting my own life-time
difficulty in making people around me to understand certain subtle differences
in approaches which look the same on the surface. My thinking process
and my practical actions, almost all my life-long activities
concerning river basin planning and implementation, have been shaped by
my education, training and practising in an area which required an
interdisciplinarity, building the whole as the parts relate
and fit in, (as against multidisciplinarity- adding parts to make a
sum) which requires attention to relationships and growing together by
influencing each other in the process towards a target, never fully
reached. Interdiciplinarity deals with complex systems requiring a
process approach with all the characteristics of anticipatory systems where
feed-back and feed-forward are continuously operating. It is
very similar to living system, with only difference it starts with a
man-made starting point with a man-made endind point, but always to be revised
on the way. At times initial conditions are also affected. This is also basic
difference between project versus process approach, which is in a way
self-organizing, nonlinear and dynamic as well as synergistic. It is certainly
never as self-organized and emergent as the nature is where the biology forms
an integral part.This is certainly ideal but many times politics
determines both the initial conditions and the fixed targets. This is what we
are trying to replace. To go with that my personal aim is to apply my own
understanding and Rosennean approach as an amplifying, correcting and maturing
tool to social-ecological systems to make a dent within the
process of replacing the ongoing (declining) social paradigm with a
nature/human friendly one from within.
This is similar to healing a failing health by
improving the body's immune system or reforestation on the side of living
systems and restoring an ailing historical structure growing from its own
original credentials (purpose/function, shape/content.. as causations in
nature).
This is just for you and Tim to reflect on. Please let me
know if I am out of the track. Even if I am I must say how much I appreciate
the work progressing in this list.
My best,
Ayten
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