Re: Modelling Relation

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

Calvin Ostrum wrote:
-snip-.
> I have looked at that book fairly carefully and it doesn't see to
> do what I am asking for at all, as far as I can tell.   For starters, the
> crucial relation of modelling is not defined very rigorously.
> Perhaps if I look
> at "Anticipatory Systems" it would help, and I intend to do that.
>

TG: Calvin, I think you will find the chapters in AS regarding the modeling
relation (which occupy much of ch. 2-5) useful and more detailed than the
overview in LI. But it would be beneficial to additionally go back to FM for
an even more complete picture of measurement and modeling, cast in a
category-theoretic treatment. As a rule, I would say that each of Rosen's
books implicitly presumes, to one degree or another, that the reader already
has the knowledge from the prior books (and prior papers). This can make
some points appear glossed over when it is simply that they have - as far as
Rosen was concerned - already been adequately covered previously.

Unfortunately, he sometimes does not explicitly refer back to specific
papers or books. A good example is replication in ch. 10 of LI, where he
simply says, "I have repeated the argument many times in previous work and
need not repeat it here." This seemingly dismissive comment in fact refers
to instances including as far back as the original discussion of replication
in a BMB 1959 paper about the (M,R)-system, and which in turn, rests on the
preceding 1958 BMB paper on the (M,R)-system. A reader unaware of that
specific connection might be rather confused or at a loss as to where to
turn for those previous arguments.

Regards,
Tim