Re: Problems for solutions

[John M <***>]

Dan,
triggered by your comprehensive and meaningful post, thanks,
you use "complement" a lot in case paired with the term "opposite" as an
opposite.
I never elevated to the level of really understand 'complement'
just was (logically) turned off from its QM use where I read it first (eg.
wave and/or particle paradox).
>From your formulation the little light went up and I think the complements
include different aspects which ALL can be applied with success, while
opposite menas the either/or.
Am I reading you right?
(Not according to your closing phrase).

Now here is a remark to the stuff you wrote:
I believe to identify 'death' is no easier than 'life'. Death is a process
in nature - as we think about it - just like life. The naive idea of
"everything ceases" is unteneble. That would be nirvana, a term for Alice's
Wonderland. As we observe many 'processes' in the "living" state, we have
many in the "dead" state as well. In the captured meaning above, the dead
state would be a complement to the live state (escaping from the definitions
of the nouns). Just as necrotic processes are included in the living
process. Matters of points of view.

Now I enter the slippery slope: is machine/mechanism the
opposite(complement?) of life/complexity, because it is the model-view of
the definition we use for it? It may be a very successful didactic
formulation of RR to explain complexity - so unexplainable for the
reductionistically impressed crowd?

Do we (on this list) need such? maybe yes. Yet, if so, maybe it is not the
'main dish' we should chew on too much. I for one appreciate your stating
it, but I think 'we' can catch it from your words. An opinion of mine, what
I already violated.

John M
(PS. Dan, I use the "M" you questioned, because I am not "K" - it was
disturbing on Don's list: 3+ Johns unspecified).

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:41 PM
Subject: Re: Problems for solutions


> Tim,
>
> Good points. A comment that may or may not be relevant,
> but to me suggests the challenges to clarity are big and not
> trivial. In papers Steve Kercel has written he cites some
> people who explain the Liar's Paradox as rooted in an
> ambiguity with our sense of falseness - it can either mean
> negation or denial (the explicit details and distinctions of
> which I don't remember but need to learn). The strange
> loopiness and "bad", contradictory behavior of the Liar's
> Paradox goes away if one keeps these two meanings of
> falseness clear and distinct.
>
> I think we are dealing with a similar ambiguity with life,
> one that perhaps is tangled up with the distinction
> between complement and opposite. Rosen seems to say
> that the opposite of life is machine or mechanism. But I
> think in many minds (including mine) the opposite of
> life is/has been death, intuitively. But what if death is not
> the opposite, but the complement? If life is not a thing but
> a process (i.e. living) and if the complementary process is
> required  - like two heads of a coin, two poles of a magnet,
> two types of electrical charge, etc. cannot be fractionated
> or discussed alone, in isolation - then death or dying is
> integral to life, not the opposite. But, if machine or
> mechanism is the opposite of life it is something other - it
> is not required or integral for life, it can be fractionated,
> treated in isolation. But machine and mechanism as the
> opposite of life may then figure in another coupled
> complementary process and impredicative definition - one
> about Great Truth a la Bohr: A Great Truth is one for
> which its opposite is also a Great Truth. Life and complexity
> (in science) may be a Great Truth, mechanics and machines
> (in science) may be the opposite. Together we get Great
> Truth, alone we don't. Another reason not to slam or shun
> mechanism but to seek to resolve the conflicts (maybe not
> even needing to say one is more general and the other
> degenerate, necessarily. Perhaps more context dependent
> in value-neutral way. Not sure.)
>
> Hmm...not sure if that is any clearer or not. I guess I am
> asking whether these distinctions are part of the problem,
> like a general conflict in wars between mechanistic and
> non-mechanistic science and between humans and our
> environment, and if so if their clarification could help with
> issues like how to move forward, either in learning (science)
> or living (sustainability).
>
> Maybe "complement" is more ontic, "opposite" more
> epistemic?
>
> Dan
>