Phil Henshaw wrote: > Günther Greindl wrote: >> >> You can stay in the system. Then there's only symbols. Whoever said >> that it was allowed to go outside the symbols? >> >> And if you analyze one formal system on a higher level formal >> system, then, there again, only symbols. >> >> Everything else is philosophy (this is barebones formalism I am >> advocating here - but then again - why not? you have to give >> reasons for assuming more).
Just to be clear, Günther wrote that part. > [ph] Yes that's the key step, having a reason to assume more so that > a process of looking for it is justified. You can't confirm things > outside your syntax without looking for them and finding them. > Otherwise you just have fiction. But having clues to where to look > for things that are discoverable is a reliable procedure for going > beyond your current model. I agree that your syntax must be somehow inadequate to cause you to look outside of it. And, if we believe his argument, Rosen's work culminated _merely_ into a demonstration of how our modeling language is inadequate. (Not to belittle that achievement, of course.) He didn't really get very far in extending the language so that it could capture (Rosennean) complexity. But, I'm not sure that "having clues to where to look for discoverable things" is a reliable procedure. That sounds pretty ad hoc. If I were to attempt to create a reliable procedure, it would invariably involve some concerted (and distributed) hands-on effort to explore reality. In fact, I can't think of a better method than what we're already doing in science today. The only flaws I can see are a) not quite enough "big science" and b) not quite enough amateur science. And, of course, our society is in a fragile balance between objective truth-seeking versus self-interested rhetoric. We could easily fall back into a dark ages where, say, Monsanto, specified what we consider "biological truth". So, it would be nice, but perhaps logically impossible, to construct a really _reliable_ procedure. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
