Gordana & Igor, et al:
Your postings caught my attention and I forwarded
them to Judith Rosen, Robert Rosen's daughter, who
was close with him in his scientific writings.
She asked me to forward the following:
"Robert Rosen never said that we can't make a machine
that repairs itself or that reproduces itself. He simply
said that those machines are not and cannot be alive. The
entailment structure underlying the behavior of any
self-repairing/replicating machine is entirely different
from that of living organisms. The difference between such
simulations of life and actual living systems has to do with
what entails the repair capability-- and with the simultaneous
presence of the capability of metabolism-- and with what
entails IT as well.
Bear in mind that RR defines "machine" in a very particular
way. So by that definition, we will never create a living
"machine"-- however, that does not mean that he felt it was
impossible to create living systems. He told me himself that
he was pretty sure he could do it. In that event, what has
been created is not "a machine"-- regardless of what it is
made out of. It's an organism.
The organization of a machine, by definition, is not complex;
it's what he referred to as "simple" (regardless of how
complicated it might be-- this is the difference between his
definition of complexity and complicatedness). In contrast,
the organization of any living organism is extremely complex.
Complexity, as a "measure" of organizational type, is not about
size or about structural intricacy, it's about the nature of
the organization itself and what that multiplicity of relational
interaction, cohesion, and dimension can generate in terms of
material and temporal effects, etc. It's not important what the
material aspects are, where living systems are concerned. It's
about all the interactive relational stuff giving rise to effects
and behaviors that none of those material parts would/could ever
be capable of on their own. That's why it is often said that a
complex system is "more than the sum of its parts".
How else can it be explained that we can fully measure the
material ingredients of any living organism we choose, and
yet no matter how we try to combine those ingredients, the
result is not a living organism?
Please invite whomever has asked this question to contact me
if there are further questions, all right? I'd be surprised
if there aren't, and I'd very much like to talk over why
these things are so.
Slainte,
Judith"
If anyone is interested, contact me off-list
and I'll make the arrangements.
Jamie Rose
Ceptual Institute
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Received on Wed Jan 25 05:02:37 2006
