Discussion Notes & Presentations

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Week 1 (Aug. 26): Introduction to ENVS 5100-007

• My confusing presentation: Ask the Questions (Kineman) (this is a big file - takes a long time to download)
• Please send me you email address - I forgot to ask during class. I will set up an email listserver for the class discussions. You can post your weekly comments there, and/or bring them to class on paper. I encourage everyone to read each other's remarks.

Week 2 (Sept. 2): Introduction to ENVS 5100-007

• Roundtable discussion of papers and related concepts
  • Is "What is Life" the wrong question? (Margulis and Sagan paper)
    • Yes, but life is not a "thing" - not a special kind of matter (M&S citing Schrodinger).
    • Perhaps Life is a verb - a set of processes
  • It is a valid scientific question (Von Bertalanffy)
    • Life is the "organization" - the "organismic conception"
  • It is the central question biology should be dealing with (Rosen, citing Schrodinger)
    • But life cannot be treated as a "noun" or a "verb"!!
    • Life is an "adjective" or "predicate" - it is an organization that modifies otherwise material systems.
  • Life is not a machine - not a mechanism (all three papers)
  • Hint about Rosen's view of nature: "the modeling relation." (we will focus on this as a central principle throughout the semester)
    • the modeling relation as epistemology - A complex system is one that has no "largest," i.e., complete model. Hence a complete model requires an infinite set of models..
    • the modeling relation as ontology - what makes a complex system complex??? Could it be that it actually CONTAINS modeling relations?
    • When modeling relations can be constructed that are essentially identities, they are representing mechanisms.
    • A complex system has no perfectly commuting modeling relations (same as saying "no largest model (i.e., formal system description.)
    • we will read more about modeling relations in the coming weeks.
• Ideas for next topics
  • The modeling relation
  • Simulation (mimesis) vs "real" systems - contrast Von Neumann and Rosen complexity
• Questions/critiques
  • Rosen's idea of circular causality (and model impredicativity) seems like a weak definition of complexity, because we are now well aware of systems that cannot be described by "closed form models," and yet Rosen still calls them simple or mechanical. Even probabalistic descriptions he still calls simple and mechanical. How do we distinguish what he is saying from a debate about "closed form" models vs new methods of iterative simulation (such as cellular automata)?
  • Some suggestions: Rosen defines a complex system as one that is not "simulable." In other words, even the non-closed form simulations, while they look "realistic" and produce behaviors "like" real living systems, cannot describe and predict what a real living system will do. Hence in what sense are they explanatory? Rosen takes the view that they are not representative at all of what is actually going on - they are mathematical approximations to the behavior, but do not get at the cause.
• This disucssion will continue on the listserver. Students should post their thoughts/comments on these papers and issues on the list server.

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Contact: John J. Kineman