|
Hi Glen,
I have some comments, interspersed, below:
G.Ropella wrote: It means "Read The Freaking Manual"... which on this list
might mean, go
read more of what Rosen actually wrote. I've only read 2 of his books closely. So, it's a valid response to me. [grin] OK; that's close to one of the options I came up with for the
initials... Which two books have you read?
GR: Let me paraphrase you to be sure I understand. A paraphrase of a paraphrase... I think we're in danger,
here...
GR: There are alot of side
issues you bring up in your prose; but, I'm not going to address those, yet (like the idea that complexity is binary, the difference between complicatedness and complexity, and the existence/usefulness of the concept of "state"). Complexity is not binary, unless you accept Von Neumann's
definition of it (which RR referred to as "complicatedness"). This actually
isn't a side issue, it's the main issue.
GR:You mean to say that von Neumann suggested that living systems could be linear and _not_ self-referential and that complexity is achieved through concreteness (i.e. moving from abstract to the detailed concrete). Not quite, no. It is quite possible for a machine to be
self-referential. Self-reference is not the same as a "closed loop of
entailment". For example, heating and cooling systems in a building are
self-referential. Even car engines are self-referential. In a sense, what
organisms are is self-entailing and
environmentally-referential.
As for concreteness... I'm not sure I understand your
definitions. Does that mean "material form"? How is a progression
from "abstract" to "detailed concrete" invoked by what I
said?
GR: And that RRosen's work suggests that a living system must be
non-linear, self-referential and complexity is coincident with self-referentiality and closure under iteration. Non-linear is the only one I can agree with, but of
course, the word is applicable only in an organizational sense.
Closure is a word that has spawned a lot of confusion in discussing Rosennean
concepts, because he (RR) described living systems as open systems which are
"closed to efficient cause". This has very specific meanings which don't
contradict one another in the slightest. I don't believe it can be
paraphrased as you put it, though. I am not a mechanical engineer (although I'm
married to one!) but I think I could probably design and build a machine, all by
myself, that would satisfy every aspect you put in your attempted paraphrase. It
wouldn't be an organism, that's for sure.
As my father viewed Von Neumann's self-reproducing automata, they
would not even be complex systems, never mind living. Simple,
albeit complicated and intricate, machines. The entailment
patterns will all be different from that of organisms. That is what defines
a simulation or simulacrum: a system that acts empirically (at least
in the short term) like the system it simulates but all the empirical behaviors
are being generated via entirelydifferent entailment patterns because the
organizational type is completely different. In contrast, there is
enormous variety of life on this planet and yet all organisms share certain
basic entailment patterns. These are organizational matters. All living systems,
according to Rosennean Complexity Theory, share the same basic organizational
type. It's characterized by certain features: Anticipation, functional
imperatives, metabolism and repair. The only way to create life is to create an
organization which generates these entailment patterns. To go the other way and
try to create the end behaviors is to simulate the appearance of
life.
GR: I think von Neumann
handled non-linearity, self-referentiality, and closure under iteration explicitly by building a full _ontology_ in which the evolution of the machine would occur. In this regard, it seems like von Neumann and RRosen would be in full agreement. Nope. However, this brings up some interesting concepts. For
example; how does one build an ontology? And I'm curious as to
how you define "evolution"?
GR: Further, I don't think vN would suggest that complexity is solely achieved through added detail... if that were the case, then why would he go to so much trouble to try to build a machine that was as ideal as his machine? I wouldn't be surprised if Von Neumann wouldn't have viewed it that
way, either. However, it's the consequence of his reliance on contemporary
laws of physics, that's all. Because he used that as his basis, and because he
suggested that it was possible to cross a threshold from simplicity to
complexity by accretion, the logical analysis of that set of concepts is
what my father stated. And, he said, the universe doesn't work that
way. It simply doesn't follow, when those "laws" are applied to biological
systems.
GR: He would have been better served doing more engineering
work with concrete materials (like our current gene-o-philes ;-). It wasn't concreteness or detail that gave him his growth and evolution of complexity. It was the structure and dynamics (organization) of the machine that presents the meat of his work in that area. (at least from what I know of it) Question: Did Von Neumann ever actually attempt to build these
self-reproducing automata? Or was it that he merely suggested that it should be
theoretically possible. Secondly, I still don't see what concreteness and detail
have to do with one another.
GR: The point I was making to Tim and Dan, however, _is_ related to added detail. My claim is that _no_ formalism can completely describe an extant system without getting into a high degree of complexity. This is only true if the system is approached by reductive means.
Isn't that a kicker? Ah, the world is full of ironies!
GR: And by
complexity here, I mean, self-referential, causally looped, iterative, nonlinear properties. This is not the same definition for complexity that we are working
from, I have to point that out.
GR: For example, the gasoline engine, when modeled in
all it's gory detail, would present intra-formalism problems like turbulence. The real engine decays, rusts, blows gaskets, explodes, etc. These are phenomena that aren't easily captured in formalisms. Any model of the formalism that captured them would not be "computable". As soon as you break any system up into constituent parts, you are
no longer dealing with the same system, anymore. So, what you are talking about
here is actually modeling the entire universe, in order to arrive at your
gasoline engine. That's the "hard way".
GR: I'm trying to get at the practical
usefulness of calling one thing a machine and another thing an organism. What do we achieve by making this distinction? It's only useful if our labels correspond to actual distinctions.
For example, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". To call
an organism a machine is entirely possible and is, in fact, done all the
time. What has science learned about living-ness as a quality of
organisms, by doing so? This is one of the questions that my father
asked.
GR: If we were really good
at it (and most others were really bad at it), could we get rich doing it? [grin] I'm sure we could. If one is really good at it, one can get
rich by selling just about anything. (Who was it that said "There's a sucker
born every minute"? P.T. Barnum?) But that has to become the goal of life,
and where's the fun in that?
Judith
|