Commenting on Igor's, I interleave:
>Dear FIS-listers,
>
>It has been a long time since I participated in discussions here. Just a few
>remarks:
>1. What is the definition of the term "order"? Unless we are able to define
>it properly,
S: Good idea!
> we are entangled in a theological paradigm, like the medieval
>"is nature moral?" or "what is the purpose of natural phenomena" ones.
>2. I would suggest to try to define order first, and in my humble opinion,
>two lines of though are possible:
> a) the Colmogorov complexity definition. If there is order, then the
>system allows compressed description
S: This order clearly exists in human logical constructs. Yes,
we would expect order to exist in ALL human logical constructs (but
see below!).
> b) the evolution paradigm. If there is order then the evolution is
>predictable.
S: Most researchers take evolution to be non-predictable. As a
reflection of this I (1993 book) have defined evolution as 'the
irreversible accumulation of historically acquired information'.
There are, however some curious facts in biological evolution that
are referred to as 'convergent evolution', where very similar forms
and lifestyles have been evolved independently by distantly related
lineages. This topic is generally avoided today because existing
evolutionary theory is unable to handle it.
> c) order simply as a possibility of finite description by logical
>symbols.
S: Anything logical is almost by definition orderly!
>On the other hand we should always remember, that when we discuss Nature we,
>in fact, deal not with nature but with its reflection (encoding) in our
>conscious.
S: This is what in my initial posting on this topic I called
'Nature', as opposed to 'The World', which we spontaneously inhabit.
> Nature does know what is F, m and a, neither it knows Newton's
>F=ma. F=ma belongs to our reflection of Nature,
S: Which IS Nature!
> and experiments show that
>with F=ma we indeed reach a certain level of predictability, i.e. order. Not
>more. Any attempt to absolutize our reflection of Nature and to substitute
>it for Nature proper will immediately lead us away from the subject deep
>into the realm of theology and teleology.
>I think the proper questions here may be instead:
>1) Do we reflect Nature adequately in our conscious? (and here we go to
>Robert Rosen's modeling paradigm)
S: Yes, good question; To what degree does Nature, our
construct, reflect The World that we inhabit?
>2) Does this reflection have order? The answer is yes and no. Yes meaning
>that we may construct logical systems "over" this reflection. No meaning due
>to Goedel's theorem our logical systems will be either incomplete or
>contradictive
S: This latter is somewhat like Heisenberg's uncertainty
Principle. So there can be aspects of Nature that seem not to be
orderly.
STAN
>3) How to measure order in our reflection -- see the above a) b) and c)
>points.
>
>Yours, Igor Rojdestvenski
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steven Ericsson-Zenith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Foundations of Information Science" <[email protected]>
>Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 7:05 PM
>Subject: Re: [Fis] list discussions
>
>
>Dear list,
>
>I like this question "Is nature orderly?" and agree that it is worthy
>of discussion. However, let me ask exactly how you would define an
>orderly nature, how you would detect an orderly nature and what do you
>think the implications are of it not being orderly?
>
>Joe, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "any order we may
>discern" and "logical in an expanded sense of logic"; surely any order
>we discern is a priori logical in any expanded sense.
>
>With respect,
>Steven
>
>
>On May 23, 2008, at 7:06 AM, Joseph Brenner wrote:
>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> With due respect to Pedro, my first reaction to Stan's proposed
>> question is a positive "very useful". I believe that there are deep
>> issues of randomness or spontaneity, determinism and computability
> > that will emerge from its discussion. Another aspect is whether any
>> order we may discern can be, as I suggest, logical in an expanded
>> sense of logic. I would look forward to a discussion of this topic.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Joe Brenner
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Pedro Clemente Marijuan Fernandez
>> To: [email protected]
>> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 5:56 PM
>> Subject: [Fis] list discussions
>>
>> Dear FIS colleagues,
>>
>> It is a long time that we do not have discussions in the list. I
>> have not been able to arrange any other "planned session" after Bob
>> Logan's one, due to work reasons (changing to a new job months ago).
>> It is not sure at all that in a few weeks there will be a new
>> session arranged. However, several weeks ago, Stan suggested
>> starting an open, informal discussion around a simple question:
>>
>> Is Nature Orderly?
>>
>> As a side comment (or response of sorts), I quote from P.M. Binder:
>> "The field of complex systems currently appears as an unfinished
>> mosaic. Many capable researchers are polishing and gluing the tiles
>> that may turn it into the queen of all sciences, the science of
>> synthesis and surprise. As we realize how much everything is
>> connected, both cooperation [or emergence] and dynamical frustration
>> can become important tools for our understanding of how the world
>> works." (2008, Nature, 320, pp. 320-21)..
>
>
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