I don't have the kind of credentials you have for entering this discussion. I'm a professional novelist who has science as a hobby. So you may want to keep that in mind as you read on.
Saturday afternoon, a small group of members of the Washington Evolutionary Systems Society (WESS) will meet in the Department of Mathematics at Georgetown University to discuss "Into the Cool". (Eric Schnieder, Alicia Juarrero, Bob Ulanowicz and myself are among the founding members of WESS.) The discussion of "Into the Cool" is open and we invite you to participate. Eric has sent us some questions he wishes us to address. Professor Prigogine spoke to WESS on several occasions and was the only honorary member of WESS. In the WESSbook group we have discussed the books of many evolutionary theorists, including the works of Prigogine, Alicia Juarrero, Ulanowicz, Rosen, and perhaps a hundred others. (Victoria: We would be delighted if you would join us!)
Thanks for invitation. It sounds like a fascinating group. I mentioned (I think) in my first post that I haven't finished reading _Into the Cool_ yet. As I read further I see similarities between their idea that complex systems are "fueled by the gradient" and Peirce's notion that difference (which must spontaneously arise from sameness) drives complexity. Perhaps not incidently, it's also not so dissimilar from Hebraic creation myths which say that the universe began when the void was separated into day and night.
If I were wise, I would wait until I finished the book before discussing it. But I'm not wise, only anxious to be set straight. It seems to me that S & S's thesis in Into the Cool is this: The purpose of complex systems is to reduce the gradient. The second law of thermodynamics is responsible for the rise of complex systems. The latter statement must be a product of my misreading and I'm trying to correct it. Laws don't cause things: they are merely statements about the global effects of local mechanisms.
My comments then are: Reducing the gradient is what a complex system _does_, but what a complex system does does not explain how it arose. This seems to require an additional step. As S&S say, it is a pre-existing, sufficiently steep, gradient that causes a complex system to arise. In their words, complexity is "fueled by the gradient." This secondary claim seems inconsistent with what seems to me the primary claim that it is the tendency of the gradient to be reduced (the 2nd law) that causes complex systems to arise. The deeper question, it seems to me, is what caused the first gradient(s) to form? or as Peirce roughly puts it, How does difference arise from sameness?
The answer, I am coming to believe while reading S & S, has more to do with the mechanics behind the third law of thermodynamics, not the second. (Pressure in a given volume increases or decreases with temperature, at absolute 0 there is 0 entropy.) As S & S write, 'the presence of a nearby gradient puts pressure, sometimes literally, on particles moving willy-nilly to come together, however fleetingly, into gradient-reducing "selves."' (p.113) This section really appealed to my understanding of telic processes. As molecules become more dense, the speed and occurrence of communication increases, causing sameness to set in among the interacting molecules. When we begin to focus on instances of "communication" between molecules, Peircean semiotics becomes, I believe, important to understanding the mechanisms of self-organization. When semiotics enters, so does teleology.
On Apr 20, 2006, at 10:15 AM, gnusystems wrote:
I suspect that when modern science decided to stop talking about final
causes, it did so because it failed to distinguish between final cause
and final state.
I think you are right. That's the feeling I got reading Into the Cool,
but I could not express it so well.
I believe that the challenge of "final cause" is a temporal challenge. In short, one has to imagine one future point in time acting on the present. In a simple sentence: The death of Bill Clinton in 2035 caused G W Bush to end the war in 2006.
It seems to me that "final cause" takes on a different meaning in every user. For me, it refers to the fact that many natural processes seemed to have been executed by someone with a goal in mind, that is, nature sometimes seems purposeful. My interest in teleology was preceded by an interest in defining purposeful behavior, specifically artistic behavior, in people. The idea of goal-directed behavior in people is dominated by the metaphor of a goal as a target at which one aims, a target that is located in the temporal and spatial distance. This metaphor for understanding purposeful behavior has, I believe, severely hampered our understanding of the concept. Our plans are never "in the future." They always exist in the present states of our brains. I pose the question of final cause differently. Can a useful end state emerge that cannot be predicted from the states that precede it? Does this emergent property, therefore, require posting some internal constraints that guide and limit the process?
Schneider seems to be following a different path. To him, it seems, what a thing does (to maintain itself) is it's function, it's purpose. This is the way one thinks in biology when one asks what an organ does; one is asking what it's function (to maintain the whole) is.
I think that "what a thing does" to maintain itself (self-organization) is not sufficient to be described as telic. What one does ought to be useful, or function for _something else_, in a surprising way. To agree with Schneider, I have to extend his argument to include the notion that the reduction of the gradient, which produces waste, can, surprisingly, be useful to others. Where the food chain ends, however, so does the teleology.
Although self-organization is
often cited as an example of emergence of radical novelty, there
doesn't seem to be true "intentionality," as I define it, in these mere
"directional" forms of emergence (Jeffrey Goldstein makes a related
critique of the practice of equating emergence with self-organizing
phenomena.
I believe this issue is also discussed in terms of first-
and second-order emergence.)
What is the distinction you wish to express?
Is it comparable to first and second order cybernetics?
Or, differential equations?
I was thinking of Luc Steele's first- and second- order emergence: behavior that's not specifically preprogrammed plus behavior confers additional functionality on a system. I only know of Steele second-hand, so I offer the comparison with caution. I only mean to say that I don't believe my ideas are especially original.
The deepest problem that separates the arts and literature from the sciences and mathematics is the usage of the same symbols with different intent.
I am very curious about your approach to this area.
In closing, I would add a comment on symbol systems. The chemical sciences developed a symbol system, a very special symbol system, that is based on the list of atomic numbers and relations between these numbers. Chemical relations also form a particular logic that is different from physical logic. This logic can be used to calculate the number of certain structural and optical isomers - neither of which can be calculated from physical or mathematical principles. This is a very special form of logic that was used to develop molecular biology and genetics. These two sciences, both developed over the past 100 years, use chemical logic, not Newtonian calculus, to describe cause and effect relations in living systems. These two sciences also take an Aristotelian view of categories - individuals, species, and genera - for constructing decision trees. The dynamic decisions of cells in expressing DNA information are expressed in terms of relations among chemical symbols and chemical logic.
I presuppose that most readers of this list will find these statements to clash with their philosophy of physics, the philosophy of genera. I can merely add that the symbol system of physics is not the sole symbol system and that the philosophy of physics is not the sole philosophy of science. The philosophy of the chemical sciences is vastly more complex than the philosophy of physics because it must posit quantitative relations among individuals, species and genera. It must provide a source of generative grammars, not merely genera. Such is Life Itself.
If I had another life to live, I would return to school and major in chemistry. My husband and I vainly hope to find the time to teach ourselves at home, but the big chemistry textbook lies on our coffee table unopened. To give you an idea how important I think chemistry is, my two-year-old son has the periodic table, not the alphabet, pinned to his wall. If I could learn a bit here and there, through more emails with you perhaps, I would be delighted.
Victoria
Cheers
Jerry
Jerry LR Chandler
Research Professor
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
George Mason University
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
