Sunday, February 19, 2006
Discussion
Hi Paul,
I think that an Institute or Scientific Conference Center based on the broader paradigm of relational causality and complexity that my father, Robert Rosen, advocated is much needed and long overdue. Universities, in general, do not seem to be functioning adequately places of interdisciplinary learning, research, and conversation/dialog-- and, given the nature of the problems that humanity is facing at present, we need to do better at all those things.
Time is of the essence. I agree with you when you say that Robert Rosen was "correct" in his assessment of what is incorrect about our current approach in science and with the scientific paradigm in general. The conceptualizations and the approaches of science need to be expanded before humanity can productively solve problems related to complexity and complex systems. I would very much like to help implement these ideas, in Taos or wherever else they are recognized as the useful tools they were always intended to be.
I think I have quite a bit to contribute towards the establishment of an Institute of this kind:
1.) I inherited my father's reference library which is his lifelong collection of reference materials he personally used to do his own work. It is a comprehensive collection and should be made available to scholars all over the world. For example, he wrote many notations and comments into a large percentage of the books, which constitutes additional, important information, in my view.
2.) I also have been working towards collecting the work my father did while at Robert Maynard Hutchins' "Center For the Study of Democratic Institutions". This was an Institute very much like the one you have talked about organizing, but was so far ahead of its time that it was one tiny voice in the chaos of the 1960's and 70's and was, sadly, drowned out by mainstream scientific ideas. The archives from the Hutchins Center (which closed in the late 1980's) are being housed at the University of California in Santa Barbara and I intend to collect copies of all my father's papers, talks, audiotaped meetings, and perhaps even videotaped talks from symposia hosted at the Center during his year there in 1971. I believe the content of these are exactly what is required by the exigencies of our times, and I would be willing to make these materials available to a new institute, as well. For that matter, perhaps the entire archives of Hutchins' Center ought to be considered as a gold-mine for a scientific community that is now better able to appreciate the unique nature of the work and talent it offers.
3.) I inherited all of my father's papers, his written, published, and unpublished work, all his copyrights, his artwork (drawings and oil paintings), his collection of photographs from a career spent traveling the world, and his music collection (including a gorgeous cherry-wood organ that he used to play Bach fugues on and is too big for my house-- it needs a good home somewhere). I am willing to discuss the possibilities of loaning parts of these collections and/or giving copies of some of these items to a new Institute. I am also willing to entertain other ideas for ways to maximize the impact and future development of my father's life's work.
4.) I have kept in contact with several of my father's former PhD students and a few of his colleagues. These people constitute a resource and a brain-trust, which ought to be tapped for the full potential that it offers. Many of these people have been frustrated by a lack of support for innovation in accepted channels such as the university system and suffer from funding concerns. If sufficient financial backing can be secured to offer them salaries, a new institute would be the logical place for these thinkers to put their true talent and abilities to work.
5.) I have discovered, in the time since my father's death in 1998, that the knowledge I have accrued from a lifetime of being with my father is often extremely useful to people struggling to integrate his ideas in their own minds, and sometimes can make the difference between understanding and continual struggle-- particularly in fields such as medicine, ecology, psychology, social science, cognitive science, information technologies, etc-- where the work my father did has very important applications but the practitioners may be put off by the volume of mathematical illustration and technical detail in Robert Rosen's books. As a writer, I have the necessary skills to communicate the fullness of what I know of Robert Rosen's work, his life, and of the man, himself. I am eager to put these gifts to work.
Hopefully, it should be plain to see that I fully support the creation of some sort of institute-- as well as what kind of institute I envision. If these various ideas and suggestions are, likewise, congenial to you, then... let's see where we can take it.
Judith Rosen
PS: Regarding the nature of the Robert Rosen discussion list (which I did not create, but which I recently was given ownership of)... it was never intended to be anything more than a resource for people wanting to learn more about these ideas. I think it would be unfair to expect anything more of them or of the list, to be honest. That was never its function. It's function is to discuss ideas and this it continues to do. Its raison d'etre is purely for purposes of "enlightenment"