Re: machines vs. living systems

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

Glen,

The book, Life Itself, has as one of its primary themes to identify clearly
what the Cartesian machine metaphor means and to show that organisms are not
machines: "I hope to convince the reader, in the course of this the present
work, that the machine metaphor is not just a little bit wrong; it is
entirely wrong and must be discarded." [LI 23] This theme leads up to the
"Central Argument: The Limitations of Entailment in Machines and
Mechanisms".[sec. 9F] It is the limitations therein which lead to the
proposed definition of life in chapter 10 ("a material system is an organism
if, and only if, it is closed to efficient causation"), which definitively
distinguishes organisms from machines.

When you asked, "What I don't understand is this distinction between
"machine" and ... well, "non-machine".  What do you mean by "life is no
machine"?", it sounded as if you must not have had a chance yet to read Life
Itself, since the entire book follows just that theme. If you had read it,
then this theme has either eluded you or not convinced you, including the
reasoning for the definition of 'machine' and what that definition entails,
which crosses three chapters.

When you say: "My original claim was that in order for a formal system that
describes car engines to be practically useful, it must be capable of
expressing complex causality.  In that sense, complexity is _not_ an
adequate classifier for distinguishing machine from organism.", this also
suggests to me that you misunderstand Life Itself, since complexity alone is
not what distinguishes an organism from a non-organismic complex system.
Instead it is based on the proposed definition in ch. 10, which happens to
necessarily entail that an organism is a complex system.

In the modeling relation, all that sits on the natural system side is
phenomena. All our models for a natural system sit on the formal side. When
you say:
============
"RR's machines (particular formal systems with particular properties) and
RR's organisms (particular formal systems with particular properties)
are different and I believe I understand that difference."

My question was more about the comments on the list about Venter's work,
which is not about formal systems.  In fact, Venter's work is totally
unrelated to formals systems.  "My question was more about the comments on
the list about Venter's work, which is not about formal systems.  In fact,
Venter's work is totally unrelated to formals systems."
============
this suggest to me that you are unclear about the modeling relation. To even
identify a particular set of phenomena in the natural world as a natural
system means to build a modeling relation between those phenomena and formal
counterparts to them. When Venter calls some sub-collection of that
phenomena "DNA", this is again relating model(s) on the formal side with
this particular phenomena. Epistemologically, in the Rosennean paradigm, the
scientific investigation of any natural system entails a modeling relation
and the process of the building of formal models of that natural system.
Likewise, engineering of alterations in a natural system (Venter's work
included)  mean a modeling relation between formal models and the the
natural system.

Rosen's organism's are not "particular formal systems with particular
properties". Organisms are - like every natural system is in the Rosennean
paradigm - defined by their models. For Rosen, the class of natural systems
which qualify as organisms are those which possess a model which meets the
criteria in ch. 10.


All that aside, it is certainly possible for you to present us with some
other definition of 'machine', one which differs from Rosen's, and then draw
some other conclusions accordingly, such that an organism will be a member
of that class of machines as so defined. The preciseness of that definition
of 'machine' will of course be key - how precise (imprecise) the definition
is will determine how meaningful (vacuous) will be the classification of
'organisms as machines'.

Regards,
Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of glen e.
> p. ropella
> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 12:44 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: machines vs. living systems
>
>
> Tim Gwinn wrote:
> > It is evident from your comments below and previously that you
> are basing
> > your arguments on gross misinterpretations of Life Itself.
>
> What have I misinterpreted?
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella              =><=                Hail Eris!
> H: 503-630-4505                       http://ropella.net/~gepr
> M: 503-971-3846                        http://tempusdictum.com