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Hi Glen,
Comments interspersed, below:
GR wrote: And although I don't think the -arity of complexity the main issue, you seem to think it is. So, let me ask as clear a question as I can that relates to the -arity of complexity... What do you mean by "the -arity"? That one goes right by me; I
don't have a clue what you could possibly mean by it.
GR: For those of you who see a clear distinction between machines and organisms due to a dichotomy (perceptive or existential) between simple and complex systems, _how_ do you relate the two disjoint properties of complexity and simplicity to objects you run across in the real world? I guess that's me. (And I think it's both; perceptive and
existential)So, how do I relate the two disjoint properties of complexity and
simplicity to objects I run across in the world..... Most of the time, I tend to
not think in terms of discrete systems, frankly. I think in terms of relations
and the impact of relations. See, not all relations have the same kind of
impact. Some have almost no impact. It all has to do with interactions, and not
all relations involve interactions that result in changes. With most machines,
nothing happens at all until human beings use them. A brand new computer-- with
all the capability and potential the latest technological advances can offer --
is absolutely inert, sitting in its box. Same with a car fresh off the assembly
line or a washing machine or a toaster... until we put it in the
environmental conditions for which it was designed and connect the inputs--
and use it, none of the structural relations causes anything
much to happen.
I think that machines are very different from
what science has conceptualized them as. They're incomplete, as systems,
because they are actually subsystems of human mind/body/technology chimeras.
They are not naturally occuring, self-organizing systems, like solar systems or
molecules (two examples of simple systems) or atoms or organisms (two
examples of complex systems), so I consider it inappropriate to apply
models based on the template of machines to most naturally occurring
systems. That may be my father's training, but it also just seems like
basic common sense, to me. Machines are incomplete in their
entailment patterns because they only exist for human reasons, and humans are
limited creatures-- certainly in comparison with the creative potential of the
universe. We tend to create tools/machines to help us solve a problem, and
that's great. It works! Yay for us. But the fact that it works gives us the
impression that we know what is really going on in the universe and our
understanding of the universe is now based on an understanding of our
tools. The problem is, often the tools/machines cause new, unforeseen
problems... so we create different tools and machines to solve those new
problems, and create even more new problems..... That's pretty much how I see
the history of human civilization. It's a catalogue of side effects. We think
the scientific solution is to learn ever more detail about the
universe-as-we-understand-it-from-studying-our-tools... and then make new tools
to solve the side-effect problems. We rarely ever question whether our original
conceptualization of how the universe works was adequate or whether we would
still agree with it today.
I think the reason for that is that the human perception
of the universe tends to be a linear one. Our experience of it is linear; We are
born, we have a lifespan, and we die. To us, time even feels linear, as
we experience it. We have the intelligence to recognize certain types of
cause-and-effect in the world around us, and we have the intelligence and
capability to build tools which augment our natural abilities to recognize
cause-and-effect. But we are often firmly rooted in our own human perceptions of
things and define them according to those perceptions. Then, we
pass on our definitions and our perceptions and beliefs to successive
generations (and they become hallowed traditions!). We get attached to what
we're used to, including thoughts and ideas. I also think humans have a
tendency to "do what worked before". So, science has this view of all systems in
the universe as being just like machines, and has been able to make that view
work very well so far in many, many areas of human exploration and
activity... but we have entered a new stage in human evolution where our
conceptual mistakes are magnified by our numbers and our technologies, and it is
becoming clear that where biological systems are concerned, we don't seem to be
able to explain much of the important stuff, using all our tools and concepts.
Human physiology is biological, so our own health and welfare are at stake, as
well as the current roster of Earth's other living inhabitants. It's too serious
to just do what worked before, especially when we can see it's not working when
applied to medicine, ecology, social ferment, economics, psycholody, etc. I
really do believe that Robert Rosen managed to figure out why it doesn't work,
and what the wrong turns in the history of science were.
Granted, his work gives us an expanded conceptualization to work
from, which is obviously critical... but he didn't have the time to develop more
than a handful of applications based on that conceptualization. Frankly, that
wasn't what he was interested in. To tell you the truth, most of the
practical applications that he developed, he did at other people's urging.
Someone would come to him with a problem and ask what light he could shed on it.
He would think on it and come up with some practical application based on his
theoretical foundations. But, except for really rare, interesting cases, he kind
of resented that kind of intrustion into his brain-time. The requirement it
carried with it-- to stop doing what he was doing and spend time thinking based
on stuff he already knew-- was not as much fun to him as exploring the frontier.
He would do it for friends and he would do it if the problem posed was
fascinating to him, personally. But, otherwise, he was off doing his own thing.
And he died relatively young; 64. If he'd had 20 more years.....
GR:
So, what you're suggesting is a possible answer to my question. You might be saying (again, I'm paraphrasing in an attempt to give you feedback as to whether I understand you or not) that your qualitative measure that distinguishes a machine from an organism is as follows: If an object that you run across in the real world is (or can be thought of as) an _end_ in itself, then it is an organism. If an object always is (or always appears to be) simply a means to some other end (a tool, a slave, etc.), then it is not an organism. (It might be a machine, but there are other requirements for a machine that are unrelated to it being autotelic.) This is getting a bit closer to what I mean. The only caveat I
have is that these kinds of labels are all context based. They all depend
on where you're looking at things from. The analogy of means and ends is
too tricky to use with living organisms; they morph and change all the time.
Ends become means and means become ends-- both within living system organization
and in relations between organisms. For example; you used the word
"slave" as a means to some other end... but the common notion of a slave is a
human being forced into the position of being another human being's
labor-saving-device-- like a machine. A carnivorous animal will view prey
as "a means to an end" but prey animals are also living organisms. There
are also oodles of complex systems that aren't alive (e.g.
atoms); they have no means, no ends, they simply
"are".
The aspect of what you are saying that I feel is close to what I
mean is the notion of "final causation". Machines have no internal answer to the
question of final causation. It comes from outside their organization and refers
to the reason for the creation of the machine. But every naturally
occurring, self-organized system will have that answer internalized to a
greater or lesser degree, because they are not deliberately entailed from
outside like machines. Even simple systems like molecules and solar systems.
This is another reason why machines are an inappropriate model for naturally
occurring systems. They tend to bring "God-- the cosmic clockmaker" into
the picture.
GR: to clarify in case I use the words again, by "concrete", I mean: "Of or relating to an actual, specific thing or instance; particular". By "abstract", I mean: "Considered apart from concrete existence: an abstract concept; not applied or practical; theoretical". And by "detail", I mean: "An individual part or item; a particular; particulars considered individually and in relation to a whole". So, I often use concrete as an antonym of abstract. And concrete things have details whereas abstract things lack detail. Evolution means: "change over time". OK, I understand now. I think the above definitions have so much to
talk about that I'll copy them into a separate post.
I hope the above rambling thoughts help to clarify and not just
make things more confusing!
Cheers,
Judith
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