Re: Modeling relations and semantics

[John M <***>]

 Judith,
thanks for the diagram - I think it came through OK, I
saw this dozens of times and never made any sense of
it. Now that you were kind enough to paste the legend
underneath, I jumped excitedly on the text and read it
2-3 times, forcing myself to read it with
concentration. Itr still did not make any sense to me.

The words (I almost learned them ny heart) seem of no
relevance with the diagram, I still don't know what
the lines represent and what the difference is between
an identically drawn model and a natural system (I
know - at least I think I know) what it ought to mean,
but not from the diagram or its legend. 
I was so glad that after all those years I will get an
understanding of - what Tim once wrote: "a diagram is
more meaningful than 1000 words" - alas I got only to
the 999th word. 
Is there anybody - without perfect prior knowledge -
to understand the diagram upon its legend? 
Even your added explanatory text - which seems so
clear does not (really) enlighte...

John M

--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

SNIP
> The 'legend':
> 
> N = the Natural system, F = the Formal system (or
> supposed "model"). 
> The arrow numbered (1) = the entailment within the
> natural system 
> (causal entailment). If we want to make a model that
> will be of any 
> use at all in dealing with this natural system, we
> need to recreate 
> the causal entailments of that system (sometimes
> called the 
> "entailment structure" or the "entailment pattern")
> in the formalism 
> as inferential entailment (represented here by (3).
> The processes for 
> doing so are diagrammed by arrows (2) and (4);
> encoding and decoding, 
> respectively. If we can recreate the entailment of
> the natural system 
> with sufficient accuracy in our formalism, when we
> test our formalism 
> in the final phase... it accurately predicts the
> behavior we actually 
> observe in the natural system. (... and there is
> much celebrating!) At 
> this point, we can call our formalism a MODEL of N.
> Another way to put 
> that, using the number labels from this diagram, is:
> "IF the 
> information we get via the pathways 2 + 3 + 4 = the
> information we get 
> via pathway 1, THEN F is a model of N.
> 
> Note: There is a warning, issued on page 54 (it
> actually starts on the 
> bottom of page 53 and finishes at the top of 54)
> about the multiple 
> different uses of the word "model" by science and by
> many other fields 
> outside of science. He stipulates that within his
> own work, he won't 
> use the word in inconsistent ways, but he warns that
> one must 
> understand his particular definition or else nothing
> will make sense. 
> So, if his definitions don't seem to coincide with
> what you may have 
> learned elsewhere, then set aside the earlier
> definition while you are 
> studying the ideas in Robert Rosen's work and use
> his own particular 
> definition.
> 
> I don't know if I understand it in the sense you
> want
> it. If the idea is that the instrument used for
> measure a physical quantity is not part of the
> system
> being measured, that seems rather obvious to me, but
> I'm afraid I don't see how to relate the
> metaphysical
> idea of the existence of different objects to the
> idea
> that a meter or some other instrument is a semantic
> element to a given system, since when I replace m
> and
> v in 'Et=1/2m*v^2' with the same numbers it gives me
> the same result, independently how I measured mass
> or
> velocity (and this is assuming Rosen reference to a
> system is to what he calls the 'formal' one, if not,
> I'm completely lost in what he means in his book).
> So, where the 'semantic element' is being introduced
> is a mystery for me.
> 
> Now we are ready to talk about the semantic
> elements, and there are 
> actually quite a few. Looking at the diagram: the
> processes 
> represented by the arrows are not actual material
> "things". Arrows (1) 
> and (3) represent aspects internal to each of the
> systems (their 
> internal entailment structures) and arrows (2) and
> (4) represent 
> processes which are not a part of either system. So,
> in this diagram, 
> encoding and decoding are "unentailed" from within
> either system. 
> Instead, they are entailed by the modeling relation,
> itself, which WE 
> have created. That's the "creative act of a free
> intellect" Einstein 
> was referring to.
> 
> The other sticking point seems to be the notion of a
> measurement being 
> a human semantic element. I think the main problem
> you are having is 
> the training, in science, to view all measurement as
> "objective 
> information". What RR is asserting is that this is
> incorrect. Not only 
> is a measurement completely outside the entailment
> structure of the 
> natural system we derive it from, but it is also
> irrelevant to that 
> natural system. To measure the length of a snake,
> for example, and 
> come up with a number; this has no relevance for the
> snake. It's about 
> science, which is a human creation. We have seen
> that there is a 
> correlation between length and age in organisms like
> snakes, so we 
> take a measurement in order to compare it with other
> measurements. If 
> the number is high, our meter tells us that means
> it's a long snake 
> and our correlation tells us that if it's a long
> snake, it's likely to 
> be an old snake. But each species of snake has its
> own starting point, 
> so the measurement and the meaning of the
> correlation are all going to 
> be context dependent. Some species of snake may be
> longer at birth 
> than other species when they are old. Do you see?
> These are all 
> relational values and they are not available from
> inside the 
> measurement system, from inside the model which
> correlates length with 
> age.... and they certainly aren't available from the
> snake's 
> entailment structure.
> 
> Is this beginning to coalesce for you?
> 
> Judith
> 
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