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for a layman (like me) it would have been good to have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical references and examples.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) --- 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen v. Chu
I really like the array of issues raised by Tim Gwynn in quoting Dominique Chu and Wen Kin Ho's statement about Rosen's central conclusion: Robert Rosens central theorem states that organisms are fundamentally different from machines, mainly because they are closed with respect to efficient causation. The proof for this theorem rests on two crucial assumptions. The first is that for a certain class of systems (mechanisms) analytic modeling is the inverse of synthetic modeling. The second is that aspects of machines can be modeled using relational models and that these relational models are themselves refined by at least one analytic model. We show that both assumptions are unjustified. We conclude that these results cast serious doubts on the validity of Rosens proof. (from http://www.panmere.com/?cat=18) The interesting question is if there might reasonably be no means of proving a theorem about things you can't observe as that puts them beyond your 'box' of definitions for proof... I think Rosen's conclusion that organisms are closed with respect to efficient causation is decidedly true, but unprovable because it's true. It's implied by observing inaccessible organizational development, missing content on nature 'between our models', but proof rests on things within a model. Phil Henshaw .·´ ¯ `·. ~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com -- it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's interesting in what they say -- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 8:34 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) --- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
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.pdf Gus 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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) --- 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] [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent you a link to content of interest
[EMAIL PROTECTED] sent you a link to the following content: Scientific Literacy a Qualification for Office? http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/12/science_debate_2008.html The sender also included this note: Surely a topic of interest for this list. -tom johnson -- Sent via a FeedFlare link from a FeedBurner feed. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/feedflare 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen v. Chu
On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 10:40:23AM -0500, Phil Henshaw wrote: The interesting question is if there might reasonably be no means of proving a theorem about things you can't observe as that puts them beyond your 'box' of definitions for proof... I think Rosen's conclusion that organisms are closed with respect to efficient causation is decidedly true, but unprovable because it's true. It's implied by observing inaccessible organizational development, missing content on nature 'between our models', but proof rests on things within a model. I don't think that living systems being closed to efficient causation is necessarily being disputed (although I think it is far from proven). Rather, what is being disputed is Rosen's result that machines cannot be closed to efficient causation. From what I understand, things like the SCL artificial chemistry (which is definitely a type of machine) is closed to efficient causation in Rosen's sense, but again it must be admitted my understanding of such matters is a little foggy. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
This was Chu and Ho's earlier paper they published last year. I was somewhat dissatisfied with both that paper, and Louie's rebuttal, however Chu and Ho's paper that just recently came out is a stronger paper. Cheers On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 08:43:31AM -0800, Gus Koehler wrote: 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.pdf Gus 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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) --- 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 -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen v. Chu
it is because of references like these that I like to lurk on lists like this one. thank you, Joost. On Dec 30, 2007, at 1:11 AM, Russell Standish wrote: From what I understand, things like the SCL artificial chemistry (which is definitely a type of machine) is closed to efficient causation in Rosen's sense, --- 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) --- 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] Baez on Edge
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2007/12/the_qgtqft_blues.html#comments Note esp. the comments. Those who sympathize might also enjoy Cheng's article: http://www.cheng.staff.shef.ac.uk/morality C. 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
