Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
I missed the implication people are finding in Rosen's idea of non-computable models. Can someone offer some examples of instances where that matters. It sounds like it means something other than 'insoluable'. Could it perhaps include 'internalized' so therefore not accessible? Phil Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Gus Koehler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:43:31 To:'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models A. H. Louie Abstract: Chu and Ho's recent paper in Artificial Life is riddled with errors. In particular, they use a wrong definition of Robert Rosen's mechanism. This renders their critical assessment of Rosen's central proof null and void. http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdf Gus Koehler, Ph.D. President and Principal Time Structures, Inc. 1545 University Ave. Sacramento, CA 95825 916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895 Cell: 916-716-1740 www.timestructures.com Save A Tree - please don't print this unless you really need to. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 5:34 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen Hi, apparently these articles have given rise to rebuttals, see http:// www.panmere.com/?cat=18 for a survey of this discussion. I read 'Life Itself' a while ago, found it extremely interesting but not an easy read either. Later I read some of the essays from 'Essays on Life Itself, which helped. The biggest problem with Rosen's writing was for me that it is very concise; for a layman (like me) it would have been good to have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical references and examples. Later I discovered the writings of Howard Pattee (an essay in the first Artificial Life proceedings) and Peter Cariani (his thesis from 1989 http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf and a later article for example http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/ CarianiWebsite/Cariani98.pdf. I found both their writings more digestible. hope this helps, Joost. On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote: By all means have a discussion. Rosen is not an easy read, nor easy to talk about even. I have some grumbles with Rosen, which I mention in my paper On Complexity and Emergence, but these are fairly muted. There've been some interesting articles recently in Artificial Life by Chu Ho that appear to disprove Rosen's central theorem. I suspect their rather more rigourous approach crystalises some of my grumbles, but I haven't found the time yet to try out the analysis more formally myself. Cheers On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:41:43PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, On the recommendation of somebody on this list, I started reading Rosen's Life Itself. It does indeed, as the recommender suggested, seem to relate to my peculiar way of looking at such things as adaptation, motivation, etc. The book is both intriguing and somewhat over my head. Pied Piperish in that regard. So I am wondering if there are folks on the list who wold like to talk about it. By the way, does the fact that I am attracted to Rosen make me a category theorist? I am told that that is somewhat to the left of being an astrologer. Nick --- Joost Rekveld ---http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld --- This alone I ask you, O reader, that when you peruse the account of these marvels that you do not set up for yourself as a standard human intellectual pride, but rather the great size and vastness of earth and sky; and, comparing with that Infinity these slender shadows in which miserably and anxiously we are enveloped, you will easily know that I have related nothing which is beyond belief. (Girolamo Cardano) --- 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 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
All, Ok, so my questions about Rosen are of a really fundamental nature. You guys are already WAY down the track. In fact, could somebody clarify, in terms that a former english major would understand, what it means to say, organisms are closed to efficient causation. I read it and I read it and I READ it and it just doesnt STICK! Would that amount to saying that Rosen believes that nothing is entailed by the fact that you just poked a tiger with a pool cue? Whereas, much is entailed by saying that you have just poked a pool ball with the same cue? If I changed the words above from entailed by to implied by or inferable from, does Rosen get off the boat? Would anybody who accepted organisms are closed claim be willing to enter a tiger's cage with a pool cue KNOWING THAT the tiger had just been poked with the same pool cue? For the new year, I dream of a world in which no two people are allowed to argue in my electronic presence until the key AGREEMENTS that make their argument possible are made explicit. That is probably amounts to asking you all to be as dumb as I am. Hey! I can ask! Nick OTHER STUFF FROM THIS THREAD -- Message: 10 Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:43:31 -0800 From: Gus Koehler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' friam@redfish.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models A. H. Louie Abstract: Chu and Ho's recent paper in Artificial Life is riddled with errors. In particular, they use a wrong definition of Robert Rosen's mechanism. This renders their critical assessment of Rosen's central proof null and void. http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdf Gus Koehler, Ph.D. President and Principal Time Structures, Inc. 1545 University Ave. Sacramento, CA 95825 916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895 Cell: 916-716-1740 www.timestructures.com Save A Tree - please don't print this unless you really need to. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 5:34 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen Hi, apparently these articles have given rise to rebuttals, see http:// www.panmere.com/?cat=18 for a survey of this discussion. I read 'Life Itself' a while ago, found it extremely interesting but not an easy read either. Later I read some of the essays from 'Essays on Life Itself, which helped. The biggest problem with Rosen's writing was for me that it is very concise; for a layman (like me) it would have been good to have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical references and examples. Later I discovered the writings of Howard Pattee (an essay in the first Artificial Life proceedings) and Peter Cariani (his thesis from 1989 http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf and a later article for example http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/ CarianiWebsite/Cariani98.pdf. I found both their writings more digestible. hope this helps, Joost. On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote: By all means have a discussion. Rosen is not an easy read, nor easy to talk about even. I have some grumbles with Rosen, which I mention in my paper On Complexity and Emergence, but these are fairly muted. There've been some interesting articles recently in Artificial Life by Chu Ho that appear to disprove Rosen's central theorem. I suspect their rather more rigourous approach crystalises some of my grumbles, but I haven't found the time yet to try out the analysis more formally myself. Cheers On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:41:43PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, On the recommendation of somebody on this list, I started reading Rosen's Life Itself. It does indeed, as the recommender suggested, seem to relate to my peculiar way of looking at such things as adaptation, motivation, etc. The book is both intriguing and somewhat over my head. Pied Piperish in that regard. So I am wondering if there are folks on the list who wold like to talk about it. By the way, does the fact that I am attracted to Rosen make me a category theorist? I am told that that is somewhat to the left of being an astrologer. Nick --- Joost Rekveld --- http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld --- This alone I ask you, O reader, that when you peruse the account of these marvels that you do not set up for yourself as a standard human intellectual pride, but rather the great size and vastness of earth and sky; and, comparing with that Infinity these slender shadows in which miserably and anxiously we are enveloped, you will easily know that I have related nothing which is beyond belief. (Girolamo Cardano)
[FRIAM] Penrose: The Road to Reality
OK, I admit it .. I find the book kinda fascinating. This review by Jaron Lanier, is quite enthusiastic: http://tinyurl.com/2kb5f8 Has anyone on the list actually read most of the critter? It's a bit daunting at 1099 pages! -- Owen 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
Re: [FRIAM] OLPC Question
The price change reflects, I suspect, inflation and runs over the budget. However, if you donate $400 to the cause, that buys one device that goes to some kid in the developing world and you, sir, receive the second to use as you will. So it's a $200 per unit cost. I have one, and while I haven't had time to fully test drive it (no manual, for example), so far it strikes me as a tool with wonderful potential for revolution. -tj On Dec 30, 2007 10:36 AM, Carver Tate [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey everyone, I am interested in donating a laptop for the OLPC program, but I have a question that I can't find an answer to on their website. They are asking you to donate 400 dollars for one laptop, but I thought the laptops were only suppose to cost 100 dollars to produce. Do you know what the other 300 dollars is for? Thanks and happy new year! - Carver -- The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell 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 -- == J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. -- Buckminster Fuller == 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
Re: [FRIAM] OLPC Question
Carver -- The price didn't get down to the targeted USD 100 -- it's closer to USD 200, which is why the G1G1 program is USD 400 (2 OLPC @ USD 200 each, one for you, one for a child in the OLPC program).? The OLPC Foundation is no doubt getting a few bucks to cover some administrative costs, but I am fairly certain no one's making money on this. You may also be aware of Intel's Classmate, another low-priced computer for schoolchildren in developing countries: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6675833.stm - Claiborne Booker - -Original Message- From: Carver Tate [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Sent: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:36 am Subject: [FRIAM] OLPC Question Hey everyone, I am interested in donating a laptop for the OLPC program, but I have a question that I can't find an answer to on their website. They are asking you to donate 400 dollars for one laptop, but I thought the laptops were only suppose to cost 100 dollars to produce. Do you know what the other 300 dollars is for? Thanks and happy new year! - Carver -- The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell 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 More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
There is a school of thought called strong ALife, stating that computational systems can be alive, given the right program. It is analogous (but not equivalent to) the better known strong AI position, sometimes known as computationalism. Rosen's result essentially says that strong ALife is impossible. Hence the interest in it, particularly from ALifers. There is also interest from AI people and more importantly philosphers of the mind, as it is often thought that the parallels between ALife and AI are strong enough to carry results from one field to the other (which personally I'm a bit dubious about). Of course, it doesn't help that nobody has a really good definition of life... On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 06:23:52PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I missed the implication people are finding in Rosen's idea of non-computable models. Can someone offer some examples of instances where that matters. It sounds like it means something other than 'insoluable'. Could it perhaps include 'internalized' so therefore not accessible? Phil -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 11:32:33AM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, Ok, so my questions about Rosen are of a really fundamental nature. You guys are already WAY down the track. In fact, could somebody clarify, in terms that a former english major would understand, what it means to say, organisms are closed to efficient causation. I read it and I read it and I READ it and it just doesnt STICK! You probably read about Aristotle's four causes - this is the origin of the term efficient causation. closed to efficient causation in my mind simply says that something is its own cause. If we ask why does this chicken exist, the answer is because of an egg existing. When we ask why did the egg exist, the answer is because a chook exists (adult chicken). Causation in this sense is closed. When you ask any question about the causation of life, you ultimately come back on youself. The meaning of life is life itself. It exists because it can. I hope this explanation makes some kind of sense. I beleive that much of Rosen's tortured explanation was trying to formalise this fairly simple and obvious idea. It is worth comparing and contrasting it with the notion of autopoiesis, which is a little better developed. Cheers -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au 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
Re: [FRIAM] Penrose: The Road to Reality
Dear Owen, I am actually reading it at the moment, I am at around page 300. It is my second go, the first one was before I had CompSci Math under my belt and I got lost. This time is much better, although he of course employs a rather broad sweep of mathematics, most of which you will only hear as a physics student (like Riemannian geometry etc) But the going is quite nice, though you have to believe him some stuff. I have also bought Needham's Visual Complex Analysis (excellent book!!), and concepts somewhat thin in Penrose's book make sense after going through a chapter in the Needham book. (Penrose loves complex analysis, and I am beginning to share his fascination :-)) Also for the later math chapters some additional mathematical literature is recommended. I can really recommend this book - I have of course already made sneak reads into the physical sections, and if you work through this book (instead of reading it casually and ignoring the parts you don't understand) I guess there is no quicker way to be informed about modern/foundational physics at a considerably more than superficial level (the next step is to study physics, really). But it will take work - that is the question you have to ask yourself: if you are willing to tackle the book instead of just reading it, I give it a serious thumbs up :) Cheers, Günther Owen Densmore wrote: OK, I admit it .. I find the book kinda fascinating. This review by Jaron Lanier, is quite enthusiastic: http://tinyurl.com/2kb5f8 Has anyone on the list actually read most of the critter? It's a bit daunting at 1099 pages! -- Owen 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 -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
Dear Nick, have you read this?: http://www.panmere.com/rosen/closed_eff.htm#en01 and this: http://www.panmere.com/rosen/mhout/msg00412.html I think this clears it up - the concept is not so mysterious after all ;-) I think this organisms are closed to efficient causation is just a descriptive principle - if Rosen says you can't compute it anyway, in what sense would it be a formalization? Apart from that, I don't yet see why it shouldn't be computable, but I have not yet found the time to read the Chu Ho Paper and the Louie rebuttal. The only thing off the top of my head which comes to my mind is Kleene's Recursion principle - a proof that every formal system can reproduce itself, so why not also an (M,R) system? (But again Caveat: I have not read the above papers yet, maybe I am missing the point ;-)) Regards, Günther Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, Ok, so my questions about Rosen are of a really fundamental nature. You guys are already WAY down the track. In fact, could somebody clarify, in terms that a former english major would understand, what it means to say, organisms are closed to efficient causation. I read it and I read it and I READ it and it just doesnt STICK! Would that amount to saying that Rosen believes that nothing is entailed by the fact that you just poked a tiger with a pool cue? Whereas, much is entailed by saying that you have just poked a pool ball with the same cue? If I changed the words above from entailed by to implied by or inferable from, does Rosen get off the boat? Would anybody who accepted organisms are closed claim be willing to enter a tiger's cage with a pool cue KNOWING THAT the tiger had just been poked with the same pool cue? For the new year, I dream of a world in which no two people are allowed to argue in my electronic presence until the key AGREEMENTS that make their argument possible are made explicit. That is probably amounts to asking you all to be as dumb as I am. Hey! I can ask! Nick OTHER STUFF FROM THIS THREAD -- Message: 10 Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:43:31 -0800 From: Gus Koehler [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' friam@redfish.com mailto: friam@redfish.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models A. H. Louie Abstract: Chu and Ho's recent paper in Artificial Life is riddled with errors. In particular, they use a wrong definition of Robert Rosen's mechanism. This renders their critical assessment of Rosen's central proof null and void. http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdf http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdf Gus Koehler, Ph.D. President and Principal Time Structures, Inc. 1545 University Ave. Sacramento, CA 95825 916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895 Cell: 916-716-1740 www.timestructures.com http://www.timestructures.com Save A Tree - please don't print this unless you really need to. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ] On Behalf Of Joost Rekveld Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 5:34 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen Hi, apparently these articles have given rise to rebuttals, see http:// http:// www.panmere.com/?cat=18 http://www.panmere.com/?cat=18 for a survey of this discussion. I read 'Life Itself' a while ago, found it extremely interesting but not an easy read either. Later I read some of the essays from 'Essays on Life Itself, which helped. The biggest problem with Rosen's writing was for me that it is very concise; for a layman (like me) it would have been good to have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical references and examples. Later I discovered the writings of Howard Pattee (an essay in the first Artificial Life proceedings) and Peter Cariani (his thesis from 1989 http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf and a later article for example http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/ http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/ CarianiWebsite/Cariani98.pdf. I found both their writings more digestible. hope this helps, Joost. On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote: By all means have a discussion. Rosen is not an easy read,
Re: [FRIAM] Penrose: The Road to Reality
On Dec 30, 2007, at 3:05 PM, Günther Greindl wrote: Dear Owen, I am actually reading it at the moment, I am at around page 300. It is my second go, the first one was before I had CompSci Math under my belt and I got lost. This time is much better, although he of course employs a rather broad sweep of mathematics, most of which you will only hear as a physics student (like Riemannian geometry etc) But the going is quite nice, though you have to believe him some stuff. The intro is certainly comfy! And browsing through a few places of interest were satisfying. I have also bought Needham's Visual Complex Analysis (excellent book!!), Wow, what a coincidence! So did I, due to some FRIAM conversations a while back but without knowing anything about the Penrose book, and its focus on complex numbers. and concepts somewhat thin in Penrose's book make sense after going through a chapter in the Needham book. (Penrose loves complex analysis, and I am beginning to share his fascination :-)) Also for the later math chapters some additional mathematical literature is recommended. Good to know. I actually like that sort of read .. an index into the mathematics world and a good motivator. I can really recommend this book - I have of course already made sneak reads into the physical sections, and if you work through this book (instead of reading it casually and ignoring the parts you don't understand) I guess there is no quicker way to be informed about modern/foundational physics at a considerably more than superficial level (the next step is to study physics, really). But it will take work - that is the question you have to ask yourself: if you are willing to tackle the book instead of just reading it, I give it a serious thumbs up :) Cheers, Günther Thanks, -- Owen 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
Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
Nick, what got my interest is the similarity of meaning between 'closed to efficient causation' and 'have their own behavior', the property of physical organisms we constantly have to remind ourselves of whenever dealing with organisms... Phil Henshaw .·´ ¯ `·. ~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 4:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 11:32:33AM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, Ok, so my questions about Rosen are of a really fundamental nature. You guys are already WAY down the track. In fact, could somebody clarify, in terms that a former english major would understand, what it means to say, organisms are closed to efficient causation. I read it and I read it and I READ it and it just doesnt STICK! You probably read about Aristotle's four causes - this is the origin of the term efficient causation. closed to efficient causation in my mind simply says that something is its own cause. If we ask why does this chicken exist, the answer is because of an egg existing. When we ask why did the egg exist, the answer is because a chook exists (adult chicken). Causation in this sense is closed. When you ask any question about the causation of life, you ultimately come back on youself. The meaning of life is life itself. It exists because it can. I hope this explanation makes some kind of sense. I beleive that much of Rosen's tortured explanation was trying to formalise this fairly simple and obvious idea. It is worth comparing and contrasting it with the notion of autopoiesis, which is a little better developed. Cheers -- -- -- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au -- -- 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 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
