Russell Standish wrote: > Perhaps. IIRC the main Rosen postings were from Glen Ropella and > myself. I suspect Glen has a rather dilletante approach to Rosen (I > know I shouldn't really speak for him though) and for myself it is > very much a side issue of a side issue related to my studies of > Emergence.
I think others, here, are also interested in Rosen. My approach is as dilettantish as my approach is to anything. Being a simulant, my profession dictates I be somewhat of a dilettante in everything I study. [grin] But, the primary (seems to me) mathematical point Rosen attempts to make is of serious interest to me. That point is that there's a fundamental limitation to formal systems and that this limitation is the inability to handle (well) loopy reasoning. Rosen cares because reality seems to tolerate or even depend upon loopy causality. I don't care so much about "reality" or "causality". I'm not a scientist. But I do care about inferential entailment, since that's where I make my living. Math (which is more than formal systems) can handle loopy inference quite well. But the modeling vernacular can NOT handle it so well. And that's what I care about and why Rosen's work interests me. Nicholas Thompson wrote: > Have I misjudged the group's interest in Rosen? I have imagined by > now that others would be beavering away at synopses of other chapters > and/or been so seduced by my incompetence that they would have taken > over the synopsizing of chapter five. I agree with Russell and would estimate that most FRIAMers don't have very much interest in Rosen. This is probably because most FRIAMers are, at bottom, practical. And, to date, it is infeasible to _use_ Rosen's ideas for anything (other than pickin' up chicks ;-). It's great arm-chair biology, philosophy, or math; but, ultimately, it's an immature body of work and the pragmatists will focus elsewhere until such time as the more esoteric Rosenites come up with something useful (which I believe they will). > I dont know any other way to come to understand a difficult book. This is a much more interesting topic, actually. "Analysis" and understanding have two base modes: simplification and embeddedness (for lacks of better terms). A synopsis is an attempt at simplification and abstraction. Another, just as valid, method is to embed oneself in the context of the author's words/actions. Having said that, I am typically like you. I like to boil stuff down to pithy (and erroneous ... because all models are always false) synopses. But, especially with people like Rosen, it's often beneficial to try the opposite. Don't simplify and abstract. Just embed yourself in all the detail you can. To do that, however, you'd have to read his other works: Essays on Life Itself Anticipatory Systems Theoretical Biology and Complexity Fund. of Meas. and Rep. of Natural Systems. ... as well as many of his journal articles, listen to interviews, etc. In his case, I highly recommend this embedding approach, because Life Itself is a terrible book; but the concepts presented in it are wonderful concepts. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ 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
