Re: The universal clock-maker...

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Dear John M.

Do you regard all notions of function as teleological?

This is the question. 

It was Robert Rosen's view that the only reasons Aristotle's fourth 
category (of "Final Causation") is disallowed in science have to do 
with the fact that the entailments of function emerge as observables
with the kind of complex organization at which life emerges. 
Anticipatory behavior, likewise. Whether these three properties are cause
or effect or co-emergent or whatever... is not known. But there is 
a correlation.

So, such observables don't exist in simple systems nor do they 
exist in complex systems which are not alive-- like the atom. Since 
science is built on a presumption; the machine metaphor, this means that 
the model for all systems, including living systems, is a simple system 
(a machine). 

However, machines are not naturally occuring systems. They are created 
by human beings, which ARE living systems, and are not complete systems
in the sense that their entailment patterns are all tangled up with OURS. 
They did not spontaneously self-organize the way a solar system (a natural
simple system) does and would not exist if we did not create them.
We generally create machines for a reason or purpose, which makes a 
machine equivalent to a tool or a technology. As such, human created 
machines are what RR called "chimerical" extensions of the system of 
"human being". An example of such a tool would be a clock.

When machines are thus analyzed via Aristotle's category of Final Causation, 
the functional aspect is clearly present as an observable (which it would not 
be in a natural simple system), and just as clearly points directly to 
human beings. "A clock argues a clock-maker". 

This becomes a hot button issue for science because the logical extension
of this thought process is; "Who is the clock-maker of the universe?"... If 
science holds to the machine metaphor, which asserts that all systems are 
"like machines", then there must be the equivalent of a clock-maker. This 
tends to make people see God (or Elvis)... And the visceral, reflexive 
negative response from people involved in scientific exploration of things  
was made worse by the facts of the nasty and quite blood-soaked history 
between science and the Christian church. Science would seem to be 
supporting some sort of proof of God, if Final Causation were allowed as
a legitimate mode of analysis in science. So it is disallowed. However, if 
we separate the presumption that all  natural systems in the universe are 
"like our man-made machines" (a very arrogant and silly notion, in my 
view, and that sort of hubris is typical of our species), then the whole 
situation becomes very different. 

Interestingly, Rosennean Complexity-- while it removes the "clock-maker" 
from the entailment analysis of natural systems in the universe-- does not 
necessarily negate the existence of God. My father's statement that 
"In complex systems, the epistemology cannot tell us about the ontology
of the system." means that no matter how much we learn about how
living systems or any other complex systems work, we cannot discern from
that knowledge how such systems came to be; how the universe was
created. In simple systems, epistemology and ontology are co-illustrative. 
In complex systems, however, they are not connected, in any observable 
way. I discovered this aspect because of discussions with devout religious 
folks who were suspicious of how Rosennean Complexity Theory may try
to "kill God". I was able to reassure them that, quite by accident, it just
so happens to give them a scientific basis on which to continue believing
as they choose.

Judith Rosen   


> John M.
>
> Why do you say that the notion of sexual reproduction allowing greater
genetic
> diversity is a "teleological" argument?
-----------------------------------
 Dear Judith,
I wrote:
I ask the question: what indications may we find for the change from
prokaryotik unisex mitosis to eukaryotik bisexual? Do not refer please to
the benefits of diversity-production: that would be teleological in the
'higher' design of good old god.
------------------------------
I am sorry, but I see no such thing as a "notion of ...allowing
...diversity"
I did not ask about the obvious beneficial notion of bisex.

 - I definitely asked for INDICATIONS..FOR the change. Origination, HOW it
came about, the answer to a "why".
If the expectable outcome is the indication for originating something, and
the 'why' is answered by an "in order to" then it IS teleological.
John M


Web address: www.rosen-enterprises.com