Back ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Send comments to review committee. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Forward

This is a note from Paul Prueitt to New England Complex Systems Institute Forum , October 22, 1999.

To New England Complex Systems Institute Forum

Concurrence has recently occured in some discussions which I report to the Bead Master.

First concurrence is about the need to not deny that there are value judgments of both methodological origin ( i.e., I value the study of issues x over issues y), and pragmatic origin (i.e., the consequences of spending government money on missile defense systems rather than on complex systems research related to the origins of poverty and terrorism.)

Second concurrence is about the common cause that many (perhaps all) of the participants have with regard to specifying, as well as possible, a methodology that brings more of a science of consciousness within the folds of empirical science practice. I think that there is some agreement. This methodology cannot be "strick empiricism" (with falsifiability depending fully on repeated observations) as we have defined the "empirical method" in the past.

(Rosen placed the limitation, to some extent, on the limitation of the process of formalism, as does the Applied Russian Semioticians; Pospelov and Finn. However, in both points of view, there are action perception cycles (Robert Shaw, Peter Kugler, JJ Gibson) and "epistemic closure" (Howard Pattie). Don has wonderfully seen this epistemic closure as being ontological grounded, in ways not yet fully enumerated, and related to the notion of "final cause". )

Our agreement on a limitation of current practice is due to the problems in observing the subjective evaluation of humans - but also goes to the question of how one observes other functional complex systems such as occur in quantum electrodynamics (QED) during any functional equivalent of the two slit experiment.