Beware. Here is my latest attempt to seduce others into participating in a group review of Rosen's, Life Itself.
I have started my writing with chapter five, which is ...
"...the pivot chapter, between Rosens characterization of physics and Newtonian mechanics as ontology that has been over generalized to biology to his development of a relational biology that is causally atemporal or perhaps, entirely non-causal. Nicholas Rashevsky is a key figure in the development of a relational biology because he makes the transition himself, in his career, from a believer in physical reductionism to a belief that
We must look for a principle which connects the different physical phenomena involved and expresses the biological unity of the organism and the organic world as a whole. (p112 in LI)"
I have by no means finished the synopsis of this complex chapter yet, which, after all, begins with Newton and ends with Category Theory. Still, I have begun writing a critical commentary which begins....
"To the extent that Rosens entire system is going to rely on his understandings of component and function, the system would seem to be in serious trouble. Rosen desires to define the function of something as the bad thing that happens when you remove it. The archetype of such an approach is brain tissue ablation as a means to discovering the functional organization of the brain. First, the idea that the loss of capacity upon the ablation of tissue constitutes the function of that tissue has long been ridiculed in the study of brain function".
Please if you are interested in Rosen, come to http://www.sfcomplex.org/wiki/RosenNoodles , pick a chapter, and get to work on it.
Best,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
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