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Judith: JR: The only way to adhere to the current mechanistic
paradigm (the Cartesian "All systems are like machines" thing) would
be to not ask the kinds of questions raised, above. But how can a scientist who
has already concluded that some systems are more than the sum of their parts
avoid asking those questions????? TG: I think this is the dilemma which makes
this books and others of its ilk unconvincing and, to my mind, somewhat
detrimental to the promotion of the Rosennean paradigm. Because these kinds of
books and papers don’t avoid the artefactual restrictions, they end up being
unable to encode or even pose questions about complex systems in a way that is
useful. They know there is something more out there, but they don’t allow
themselves the broad-enough conceptual framework in which to frame the questions
or hypotheses. So it ends up vague and unconvincing. As these kinds of
unconvincing arguments or proposals get put forth again and again, those who
are do not find them persuasive may be less inclined to read Rosen, because
they may lump his work with all these other unconvincing attempts. Regards, Tim From: ROSEN Forum
[mailto:*** On Behalf
Of Judith Rosen Tim Gwinn wrote: I think the
reviewer gets it right when he says “Laughlin's thesis is intriguing, if not completely
persuasive.”
I didn’t find it persuasive. There is alot of hand-waving and not alot of
convincing arguments. This is one of those attempts to talk about systems and
properties of systems that are beyond the reductionist paradigm, but talks
about them from the perspective of a reductionist paradigm. Hmmm, I'm wondering if the reason stems from a
failure to ask the question; "Why are some systems more than the sum of
their parts?"
That's the first question that comes to my mind-- I mean, if some systems
actually seem to be roughly the sum of their parts, but others clearly are
not... how can the extra "stuff" be accounted for? And... if that
extra stuff is what differentiates living organisms from whatever is not alive,
what causes that extra stuff? What is it? How is it different from the parts?
And... ultimately: Why does the extra stuff have that effect on
a system? The only way to adhere to the current mechanistic
paradigm (the Cartesian "All systems are like machines" thing) would
be to not ask the kinds of questions raised, above. But how can a scientist who
has already concluded that some systems are more than the sum of their parts
avoid asking those questions????? Judith |