RE: [Fis] consilience of limited observers

Terry said:
>Are you not describing here a fractal structure of nested hierarchies, where
>self-similarity characterizes dynamics at various size and time scales?
>Perhaps the epistemological work of philosophers Grim, Mar and Denis is of
>relevance here (e.g., THe Philosophical Computer, MIT Press, 1998). These
>researchers at SUNY use fractal images to model knowledge structures of
>formal math/logic systems on the computer.

      Well, not all hierarches refer to nested entities. Scale hierarchies
are more or less nested when we realize that they are not only spatial, but
spatiotemporal. Yet, even here it cannot be the case that fractals are
appropriate models. Fractals are more or less continuous, but scale
hierarchies have breaks at scale differences of about order of magnitude.
There is not yet a full understanding of what forces or constraints result
in breaks between levels in such a hierarchy, or what establishes their
distances apart. Without such breaks there would be no "room" for
dynamicsat any level.

Jerry said:
>Stan, you seldom recognize the role of chemical syntax in your views of
>hierarchy theory. It is my view that by omitting the syntax of chemistry
>from your line of reasoning, you omit the syntax that underlies both
>biological and mental systems. The fact that chemical syntax is
>profoundly different from the usual Boolean syntax of classical
>mathematics leaves your arguments with only philosophical support.

     I would like to see a simple example of what you mean by "chemical
syntax" that might be used in discussing hierarchies. With that I might be
able to evaluate your assertion.

Pedro said:
>I tend to disagree on that micro/macro view. Perhaps it happens with some
>cleanliness in phyiscial systems, that one can extensively track the
>physical information movements around (those ups and downs in Stan's
>scheme) notwithstanding phase transitions; but not in the biological realm.
>There one finds strange entities with info "black hole" properties: living
>cells advancing in their respective life cycles can disregard very robust
>info items on a facultative basis, and produce new items. And they do so
>monumentally independent of their whereabouts (up to some limits, of
>course).

     These limits are among the effects of higher hierarchical levels.

How the inner and the outer 'command flows' may systematically
>ignore each other, annihilate, reinforce, etc., (quite differently from the
>obedient average of the physical) is a great question:

     And the question only, it seems to me, makes sense in a hierarchical
background.

systems biology (and
>classical integrative physiology too), in need of a massive disciplinary
>switching becasue that black holing game is played massively..

STAN

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Received on Fri Oct 29 22:31:24 2004