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Re: Interesting analogies...

Jamie Rose wrote:
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.

Actually, the natural workings of the universe never disappointed him. He admired the fact that "we must never presume on nature, because the forces of nature dwarf us into insignificance." He was often disappointed, however, in the lack of vision and forethought in most of humanity. Particularly since we have been given, by nature, an ability to improve on much of the negative aspects of how nature handles things (like overpopulation, for example). But we tend to squander and abuse the ability, just as we tend to squander and abuse nature wherever possible. In his view, the natural consequences of doing that are very unpleasant, and will eventually occur because it is inevitable. If we leave these entailments in place, we will eventually reach that outcome-- and it's so unnecessary! We can do so much better than this, as a species.

We used to go hiking in the mountains, as a family, on various travels. Most of the family crapped out by timber line. I tried to keep going, because I preferred his company, and I occasionally managed to make it (often it was just Dad and our german shepherd, Roxanne, enjoying the view from the top). On those occasions where I had the energy to keep hiking, I was always amazed by how prepared he was, without really looking prepared at all, aside from the hiking boots and the canteen. He had these voluminous pockets, in which he had tucked away all sorts of useful things (I remember particularly his knife and a brick of chocolate!) If the bugs got bothersome, he would light up his pipe-- which worked remarkably well. And he always hiked in this slow, unhurried cadence. I asked him about that and he said, "There's no need to rush. It's not a sprint. You have to go slow enough to conserve energy and also to enjoy the beauty of the place." Looking back on it, it's kind of amazing that a boy from Brownsville, Brooklyn, would be that well-prepared out in the wilds, but he was always an advocate of learning the entailments before you put your weight on something, you know what I mean? He was never a nag as a parent, he just told us to think things through before we decided on a course of action. We all heard it a million times: "It's a causal world, kid."

Judith







Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Nov 6, 2005, at 11:46 PM, James N Rose wrote:

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".