Re: Getting to know you, contradictions

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

David and John,

Interjecting here...uninvited...feel free to take it or leave it...

David Macy wrote:
> Hey John,
>  
>     I don't want you to feel that I'm dodging you.  I'm not sure there 
> is a constuctuve way to respond.  I don't understand.  I still don't 
> know why you are attracted to Robert Rosen's work.  What I'm saying is, 
> /no/, that did not answer my question.  It strikes me as almost 
> self-contradictory.  Thoreau said, "Do I contradict myself?  Very well 
> then, I contradict myself."

That was Walt Whitman in Song of Myself. The rest of the quote goes:

"Do I contradict myself?  Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large,
I contain multitudes."

We could almost take this as related to Rosen as well as impredicativity.
Rosen said no largest model, or an infinite number of models needed
to fully model any complex entity/system. Whitman essentially identifies
himself as the great big all, totality, wholeness, everything, but in so
doing admits that this then requires contradiction and thus would not
be logical or scientific to talk about, represent, explain, model, etc. with
predicative logic (clear split between true and false, no circular logic
allowed).

> If someone were to ask me why I was attracted to Robert Rosen's work.  I 
> would probably go slowly and carefully with the telling.  Trying to 
> making sure I got it right for myself.  I don't think I would do it, 
> prima vista.
>  
> David

John Mikes wrote:

>     me in an implication of total (universal) interconnectedness (see in
>     Gestallt, system's theory, complexity of Bogdanov, the Bohm-style
>     implicate and his philosophy) and then, after all that I learned
>     about RR who showed similar wholistic ideas - developed top-down
>     from his mathematical biology into a better wholistic understanding.
>     He performed a systematic, much more comprehensive ordering than I
>     ever could imagine, by starting from the unknown - the unfathomable.

So I take John's interest to be in Rosen's wholistic ideas and approach,
and I think John has said this many times in many ways on this list.

One question I would like to ask John is - is your worldview or interest
in total universal interconnectedness and wholeness a model? If so, is
it a single largest model? And also, does it have anything not inside the
model or any incompleteness a la Godel? Does your view or model of
wholeness have any contradictions inside it? Does your view/model
have an opposite or counterpart or competitor or complement or
"other"? Is that "other" reductionism?

Happy day to all,

Dan