Posted by
Nick Thompson on
Dec 30, 2007; 6:32pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Robert-Rosen-tp525507.html
All,
Ok, so my questions about Rosen are of a really fundamental nature. You guys are already WAY down the track.
In fact, could somebody clarify, in terms that a former english major would understand, what it means to say,
"organisms are closed to efficient causation."
I read it and I read it and I READ it and it just doesnt STICK!
Would that amount to saying that Rosen believes that nothing is entailed by the fact that you just poked a tiger with a pool cue? Whereas, much is entailed by saying that you have just poked a pool ball with the same cue? If I changed the words above from "entailed by" to "implied by" or "inferable from", does Rosen get off the boat? Would anybody who accepted "organisms are closed" claim be willing to enter a tiger's cage with a pool cue KNOWING THAT the tiger had just been poked with the same pool cue?
For the new year, I dream of a world in which no two people are allowed to argue in my electronic presence until the key AGREEMENTS that make their argument possible are made explicit. That is probably amounts to asking you all to be as dumb as I am. Hey! I can ask!
Nick
OTHER STUFF FROM THIS THREAD
>
>
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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:43:31 -0800
From: "Gus Koehler" <
[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
<friam at redfish.com>
Message-ID: <000001c84a39$f2e9d0a0$6401a8c0 at EA5E71A6DE4A4D9>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models
A. H. Louie
Abstract: Chu and Ho's recent paper in Artificial Life is riddled with
errors. In particular, they
use a wrong definition of Robert Rosen's mechanism. This renders their
"critical assessment" of
Rosen's central proof null and void.
http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdfGus Koehler, Ph.D.
President and Principal
Time Structures, Inc.
1545 University Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95825
916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895
Cell: 916-716-1740
www.timestructures.com
Save A Tree - please don't print this unless you really need to.
-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Joost Rekveld
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 5:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
Hi,
apparently these articles have given rise to rebuttals, see http://
www.panmere.com/?cat=18 for a survey of this discussion.
I read 'Life Itself' a while ago, found it extremely interesting but not an
easy read either. Later I read some of the essays from 'Essays on Life
Itself", which helped. The biggest problem with Rosen's writing was for me
that it is very concise; for a layman (like me) it would have been good to
have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical
references and examples.
Later I discovered the writings of Howard Pattee (an essay in the first
Artificial Life proceedings) and Peter Cariani (his thesis from
1989 <
http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf>
and a later article for example <
http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani98.pdf>.
I found both their writings more digestible.
hope this helps,
Joost.
On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
> By all means have a discussion. Rosen is not an easy read, nor easy to
> talk about even. I have some grumbles with Rosen, which I mention in
> my paper "On Complexity and Emergence", but these are fairly muted.
> There've been some interesting articles recently in Artificial Life by
> Chu & Ho that appear to disprove Rosen's central theorem. I suspect
> their rather more rigourous approach crystalises some of my grumbles,
> but I haven't found the time yet to try out the analysis more formally
> myself.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:41:43PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> On the recommendation of somebody on this list, I started reading
>> Rosen's Life Itself. It does indeed, as the recommender suggested,
>> seem to relate to my peculiar way of looking at such things as
>> adaptation, motivation, etc. The book is both intriguing and
>> somewhat over my head. Pied Piperish in that regard. So I am
>> wondering if there are folks on the list who wold like to talk about
>> it. By the way, does the fact that I am attracted to Rosen make me a
>> category theorist? I am told that that is somewhat to the left of
>> being an astrologer.
>>
>> Nick
>>
-------------------------------------------
Joost Rekveld
-----------
http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld-------------------------------------------
"This alone I ask you, O reader, that when you peruse the
account of these marvels that you do not set up for yourself
as a standard human intellectual pride, but rather the great
size and vastness of earth and sky; and, comparing with
that Infinity these slender shadows in which miserably and
anxiously we are enveloped, you will easily know that I have
related nothing which is beyond belief."
(Girolamo Cardano)
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