Re: Interesting analogies...

[James N Rose <***>]

Anticipatory Systems 'project toward', not 'away from',
conditions and goals.  So though entailment processes
bi-/omni- directed components, the net trend of systems
goes forward through time to 'new attainables'.

When 'mind' contributes to decisions, where plans
can be based on all sort of happenstantially chosen
criteria, the possibilities open up for 'non well
contemplated' results, or, results with limited 
value .. like: lets have a world with no viruses
or cholesterol; like:  lets have a world where
produced food is chemically altered to never
biodegrade, so that it can always be eated.

With the (disappointing) result that destruction
of virues is incomplete and presses them to mutate
into more virulant strains.  With the (disappointing)
result that people ingest the bio-degrading prevention
chemicals and become perpetually sick and hyperallergetic
- though the pharmaceutical companies love it because
it gives them an excuse to push expensive anti-allergens
to fight the symptoms from eating "improved" food. 

Just like he was disappointed by 'reductive thinking',
even entailed-systems harbor functional negatives
in the scope of all possible entailigs.

Just musing on what he might have pondered.

Jamie


  





Judith Rosen wrote:
> 
> Jamie Rose wrote:
> 
>      I image your dad found it both exciting and disappointing -
>      that systems entail toward the future, but the nature
>      of such futures are open for manipulation.
> 
> Why "disappointing"? And do all systems really "entail toward the
> future"? That's an intriguing thought. I suppose it depends on how
> we define our terms, but my intuition is that only living systems
> entail toward the future, whereas all other systems don't so much
> "entail toward" as "entail FROM".
>