Thank you for the welcome, and thank you also to any of you who attended Melanie Mitchell's talk or any of the other talks today.
I don't have this particular book, however your examples are found in other Rosen books such as the Dynamical System Theory in Biology volume from 1970. I'm surmising that the Life Itself book must be a summary of previous works. I cannot argue that there isn't a decidedly physics-based bent in construction of various points. A section on scaling in a different volume uses set theoretic notation as a starting point which seems strange. But, as in picking stocks, the hindsight view is superior. Rosen's companion volume on Cellular Systems was published from the "Center for Theoretical Biology," in the earlier 70s this must have been among the first such institutions formed. In contrast, nearly 20 years later, Manfred Schroeder's 1991 Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws book gives an excellent and thorough treatment of scaling and similarity. And you probably have your different favorite as well. Having said that, I'm somewhat neutral because I haven't absorbed enough to make more than observational rather than critical statements. The initial things I have read were intriguing, in particular one of the online essays details the idea of anticipatory systems. Leigh On 07 Apr 2010 at 02:10 PM, John Kennison related > > > Hi Leigh, > > I guess I?m a Friam lurker too. I?m a friend of Nick Thompson and a retired > math professo. I like to read the Friam posts but I comment only > occasionally. I?m currently working on dynamical systems and using category > theory to break a system down into its cyclic components. > > Nick introduced me to Rosen?s ?Life Itself? and I have skimmed some articles > by Rosen. I am both fascinated and disappointed by Rosen?s work. Fascinated > by what Rosen says about the need to develop radically different kinds of > models to deal with biological phenomena and disappointed by Rosen?s > heavy-handed stabs at developing such models. And yet still stimulated > because I have enough ego to believe that with my mathematical and > category-theoretic background, I might succeed where Rosen failed. > > For example, in ?Life Itself? Rosen starts by talking about ?Newtonian > science? and the need to go beyond it, but then continues with a > misunderstanding of Taylor?s theorem which, thankfully, is never really used > in the rest of the book. Similarly, in some of his writings, Rosen talks > about the insolubility of the three-body problem, about Godel?s theorem, > about category theory, but never gets close to using any of this stuff. > > Rosen?s definition of ?component of a system? and his method of dealing with > ?non-recursiveness? are not just mathematically imprecise, they seem > completely heavy-handed and insensitive to what the situation demands. In > chapter 6, he gives a decomposition of a mathematical system into parts, but > he claims the decomposition is unique and even gives a ?proof? of this fact. > The proof is bogus and it?s easy to find counter-examples to what he claimed > he proved. (Rosen is aware of the problem since he casually notes that there > are some exceptions to the theorem but these are not important for he wants > to do. ) > Perhaps one real difference is that Rosen is a scientist, an ?inductivist? > who generalizes from experiments and doesn?t worry if there are exceptions. I > am a mathematician, a ?deductivist? who can?t tolerate exceptions. But even > an inductivist needs some mathematical skills and mathematical sensitivities, > particularly when tackling such an ambitious project as life itself. > > I?d be interested in hearing about your experience with reading Rosen. > > Welcome to Friam, from one lurker to another. > > ________________________________________ > From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of > Leigh Fanning [le...@versiera.net] > Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 9:19 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: [FRIAM] invitation + introduction > > First, the invitation: > On Thusday, the University of New Mexico Computer Science department will > hold it's annual student conference highlighting active research within > the department. Dr. Melanie Mitchell will give the keynote address at > 11:00 am. > > The conference is open with no admission fees, however we are not able to > provide you with lunch. Proceedings hardcopy can be ordered for $10, > and will be available for free via download from the website shortly. > Details, and the keynote talk abstract, are below. > > Next, the introduction: > By way of introduction, I am largely a FRIAM lurker, but have met a few > of you and in particular would like to further encourage Nick's suggestion > of a Robert Rosen reading group. My PhD research area is molecular computing > and I am developing a formal system for reasoning about molecular computing > systems, specifically those composed of heterogeneous mixtures of DNA > oligonucleotides. Milner's pi calculus, and Alur and Dill's timed automata > have been inspirational starting points. Of course it's supremely simple > to find these inspirations, and attempt physics-style reductionist > techniques, in the engineering of synthetic biological systems. However > one quickly determines that building even the simplest systems with a > biological basis must be done with a different approach. The difficulty > in system calibration and readout, and the large number of tunable input > parameters, prevent breaking down molecular computing systems into neat > modules and demand study of how living systems execute their own > engineering and maintenance. > > My training, and I use this word with great trepidation following recent > discussion, is Engineering Physics, B.S. from CU-Boulder, Computer Science, > M.S. from UNM, and among other industry jobs, 7+ years doing Guidance, > Navigation and Control engineering for the Space Shuttle program in > the middle years when the fleet was "upgraded" to handle heavier weight > missions to the Space Station -- all old hat now and soon to retire, but > initially a load of interesting problems to work out. > > Leigh Fanning > > -------- > > The train between SF and ABQ works well, the bus system has a straight > shot up to the UNM campus from the depot. Otherwise about an hour > of driving time is needed from Santa Fe, followed by some patience to work out > parking on campus. There is a large parking garage by Popejoy hall > just off of Central Ave, or street parking just SW of campus can > work well sometimes. If this works for your schedule, please come > and enjoy! > > The schedule of talks is here: > > http://cs.unm.edu/~csgsa/conference/ > > The location is the new Centennial Engineering building on the west > end of campus, bordering University Blvd, just north of Central Ave. > > --- > > Melanie Mitchell, Portland State University and Santa Fe Institute > Thursday, 8 April, 2010 > 11 am - 12:00 pm > Centennial Engineering Center auditorium > > Enabling computers to understand images remains one of the hardest > open problems in artificial intelligence. No machine vision system > comes close to matching human ability at identifying the contents of > images or visual scenes or at recognizing similarity between different > scenes, even though such abilities pervade human cognition. In this > talk I will describe research---currently in early stages---on > bridging the gap between low-level perception and higher-level image > understanding by integrating a cognitive model of perceptual > organization and analogy-making with a neural model of the visual > cortex. > > Bio: Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland > State University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. > She attended Brown University, where she majored in mathematics and > did research in astronomy, and the University of Michigan, where she > received a Ph.D. in computer science, working with her advisor Douglas > Hofstadter on the Copycat project, a computer program that makes > analogies. She is the author or editor of five books and over 70 > scholarly papers in in the fields of artificial intelligence, > cognitive science, and complex systems. Her most recent book, > "Complexity: A Guided Tour", published in 2009 by Oxford University > Press, was named by Amazon.com as one of the ten best science books of > 2009. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
