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Re: Life, itself....

J.M. wrote:
Auto-mobile really means moving by itself. It was the
misnomer of the cusp-people 19-20th c. when they saw
that a coach runs away from the horses by itself. It
never meant 'moving by people'.
And as long as I do not get an acceptable (!)
DEFINITION of 'living' (beyond the reductionistic
model 'biology') I cannot exclude "another" machine
from anticipation


Hmmm... "auto-mobile," to me, seems to mean that the passenger can travel long distances by his/her self (without requiring horses). So the car as a tool confers upon the owner/user the capability of "self-mobility"... In contrast, the car, alone, has no such capacity. It doesn't do anything by itself unless set in motion by some external force (be it an earthquake, a flood, or an ignition key in the driver's hand). But I guess that's really not important. I'm willing to accept the story of how it got its name, as you told it. Stranger things have proven to be true!

As for a definition of "living" as it pertains to organisms -- I'm amazed that you don't feel we've covered that. Can it really be that we've talked about everything else and never something so basic as that????? I honestly can't remember a discussion specifically on that subject, now that I think about it. I apologize! That's pretty bad. Let's rectify that situation, shall we?!

Preliminaries:
The aspect that my father referred to as "life" is not a single entity but, rather, a collection of behaviors and capabilities that organisms possess which no other types of systems possess. It was this difference between living organisms and everything else "not-organism" that he sought to understand, scientifically. He did, ultimately, define the difference for science and for himself as well as arrive at a set of entailments which can logically explain the "causal basis" of it. The definition is a relational one because he was forced into the realization that there are no material causes of life (in fact, his work illustrates starkly that "causality" is not a material phenomenon). To put it more bluntly; the collective set of material aspects of organisms is not responsible for their "living-ness". Instead, the cause of life is a combination of organized interaction of components (both material and not material) and interactivity (with self, with context, with information about self and context, etc...) Organization is key because it specifies, creates, constrains, maintains... the way the material aspects interact with each other and with multiple aspects of context (both internal context and environmental context)-- and how the results of myriad such interactions are themselves incorporated into the organization of the system; as processes, as new, non-material interactive components, etc.-- It is an organization which balances all these aspects that causes the set of behaviors and capabilities that we recognize as "life".

The Rosennean definition of life, then, is based on the unique capabilities of organisms and complexity theory asserts that any system's capabilities (or lack of capabilities, as the case may be) are caused by the system's total organization. Robert Rosen viewed the characteristic behaviors of living organisms (the observable aspects of their capabilities) as being categorizable and proceeded to do so, arriving at two main functional capabilities which are generated from inside the system, itself. These are: Metabolism and Repair. In order for functional capabilities such as these to be generated from within the system, the system itself must possess an organization complex enough to incorporate information in unique ways; including information about multiple aspects of time. With all living organism behavior, there is an overriding and quite visible "presumption" of a future built into the system-- (as if by existing now we have the evidence to assume we can continue to exist). Living organisms are, therefore "anticipatory systems". They are also systems uniquely based on principles of "optimality". All of these aspects are interrelated via the organization of living systems and contribute further stability to the system. It turns out that organisms wind up being a very successful type of system organization. Organisms have been a part of Earth's reality for a very long time-- in spite of cataclysms and mass extinctions.

My father had several "tests" or categorical statements for defining an organism. The most concise version goes something like this:
A material system is an organism if it is capable of metabolism and repair and, at the same time, is closed to efficient causation. To reiterate what "closed to efficient causation" means: the capability of metabolism and repair must be generated from within the system's own organization.

Does that clarify? If not, what is still not clear?

Judith



Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Oct 10, 2005, at 11:11 AM, John M wrote:

Judith: in defense of Jerry (he does not need it
though) -
Auto-mobile really means moving by itself. It was the
misnomer of the cusp-people 19-20th c. when they saw
that a coach runs away from the horses by itself. It
never meant 'moving by people'.
And as long as I do not get an acceptable (!)
DEFINITION of 'living' (beyond the reductionistic
model 'biology') I cannot exclude "another" machine
from anticipation - adorning with this epitheton only
the 'biologic machine' within the model 'bio'. I hold
that the reductionist science 'bio' does not include a
natural system beyond the boundaries and so is prone
to be called a limited model. Anticipation? I may be
wrong again, but I understand this term similarly
beyond the limitations of a model, meaning something
(I do not pretend to identify RR's term better than he
did) like:
having the features for activity (change) not yet
realized and so prepared to such activity. This is not
a 'humanizable' factor and a car may be assigned such
potential as well. Besides: Jerry did not speak about
a car, he definitely spoke about features "moving by
themselves" e.g. humans or in case of cut models: a
machine.
(Btw I am working on identifying the generally held
concept of a human (a person) as but a limited model,
a machine, vs the unlimited view of a node (attractor)
of the unlimited interconnective effects with some
falling within this 'view's observational aspects more
than others. This "more than others" is the problem.
Bodily: the skin, mentally: the self are both
interconnected (accepting and responding) with more
than applicable in our redux scientific terms.)

John M

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

Jerry Zhu wrote: Why not themselves antificipate?
Second law operates
that is the ever increase of entropy. Automoble
means
self movable objects that could be an automobile
or an
animal. Obviously they both anticipate.

Jerry; either you have some really unique
definitions of anticipation
or you are very much at odds with Robert Rosen's
work. Come to think of
it, you have a really unique definition of
"self-movable object" too. I
would say that automobiles are "human-movable
objects" but they don't
do anything by themselves. They are designed for
interaction. Humans
are the anticipatory system in the equation. Cars
are simple systems.

Judith


Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science
based on the
Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Oct 9, 2005, at 3:24 PM, Jerry Zhu wrote:

--- David Macy <***> wrote:

Yo no soy un poeta, Rodrigo! Soy demasiado
tanto.
Jerry Zhu wrote: Does an automoble anticipate?

Did you ask this of the void? Was it rhetorical?
We could just talk about questions!!! I would
say
that automobiles are built in anticipation, but
of
course they themselves do not anticipate.

Why not themselves antificipate? Second law
operates
that is the ever increase of entropy. Automoble
means
self movable objects that could be an automobile
or an
animal. Obviously they both anticipate.

Jerry

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