Friday, February 17, 2006
Discussion
Communication
from Judith Rosen
John Sowa wrote:
Note the word "purpose". That is where the
positivists
failed. They ignored purpose -- not by accident, they were
passionately dedicated to the idea that all discussion of
purpose had to be eliminated. That was why their theories
ended up as irrelevant to any application whatever.
How true! I'm sort of surprised to see you write this, actually. But, this is not only the problem with the "positivist" agenda, it is precisely the problem Robert Rosen diagnosed within science in general and is a legacy of the machine metaphor. Your description of the positivist agenda is exactly how he described the current definition of what is allowed to be called scientific! Any mention of purpose, or aspects of Final Causation-- the fourth category of Aristotelian analysis of system entailment structure-- is forbidden in science because it seems to generate anomalous information when applied to natural systems. "A clock argues a clock-maker"... That's because a clock is a machine. If all systems are assumed to be "like machines" then... you see the problem it generates?
Purpose is something which pre-exists any function designed to serve that purpose, wouldn't you agree? If so, then this is a case of the future acting on the present-- something which science says cannot happen except in human thought patterns. To describe it in any other system is labeled "anthropomorphism" and thrown out as unscientific. Anticipatory Systems Theory (which, incidentally, describes a type of system organization on which all LIFE/living organisms are based) suggests that the difference between future and present is only a prohibitive impossibility when the view of TIME is a linear view. Most of the evidence regarding how time works in our universe, particularly with complex and living phenomena, is cyclical in nature. In a cyclical process, the end is also the beginning, and where that end is depends entirely on which aspect of the process one bases one's observation/assessment from. Only when fractionated does a cycle look like a series of linear steps, where a rigidly defined sequence of past, present, and future exists which cannot be abrogated.
Purpose is not only a human intellectual quantity but can also be found hardwired into systems where information is a component of system organization, according to Rosennean complexity theory, which postulates that living systems are examples of naturally occurring systems where this is the case. As such, a systemic value of optimality is integrated within all living systems and around which they self-organize-- indeed, it is part of the basis for my father's recognition of living system organization. All living organisms have an innate, systemic, totally relational (context-based) value of optimality. We often refer to it, collectively, as "health".
Living systems have a built-in drive for survival. What is survival? I would define it as preservation of system integrity. What is health, then? We could say it is the value of system optimality which system maintenance (metabolism) and repair continually strive to achieve. All living systems seek to maximize every relation within (with self) and without (with everything not-self; meaning with environment/other organisms) according to this systemic value of optimality. The only way they are able to do what they do is by exploiting the cyclical nature of time, which exists both inside and outside of living system organization. Thus, living systems are anticipatory systems. This is part of what differentiates living systems from all other (non-living) systems.
JS wrote:
However, there is one more factor to
be considered:
the fact that any given situation can be perceived
"correctly" in an open-ended number of ways (perhaps
infinite) for any number of different purposes.
Also completely true. The only way to differentiate the many "correct" ways of perceiving any given situation is via some value of optimality. So, for your purposes, where computer programming/information processing are concerned, the first step is to set the value for optimality that you want to achieve and then everything else will be predicated and directed by this value. It's the North Star.
Judith
Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm