----- Original Message -----
From: "Igor Rojdestvenski" <igor.rojdestvenski@plantphys.umu.se>
To: "Giuseppe Longo" <Giuseppe.Longo@ens.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] Robert Rosen's modeling paradigm
> Dear Giuzeppe,
>
> Please allow me making some comments regarding your post.
>
> 1. There are artificial systems which are built bottom-up, i.e.
> self-organize. One of them is Internet, which is an obvious example. But,
> in fact, any computer system is usually built bottom-up. Let us take an
> example of a computerized business management system. When it is designed
> at first, the design is top-down. However, in the course of ist operation
> two things happen at once. One is continuous adjustment of this system to
> reflect more fully the actual business processes in the company. Another
> is a continuous change with time of the business processes themselves, as
> the reflection of changes in the market situation, regulation system,
> interest rates and so on. These effects, as my personal experience tells
> me, are very important and often crucial. One more example of a bottom-up
> artificial system is stock exchange.
> Take also an example of your own personal computer.When you buy your
> notebook, it is not different from another one of the same make. Then you
> start installing software. Each piece of software interacts with other
> programs, and as we know all of them contain bugs. These bugs combine
> uniquely for any computer configuration, software configuration and local
> network configuration. You also almost always have (although you may not
> be aware of it) a number of spyware and trojans. Did you plan all this?
> Who designed this? The answer is -- the system itself in the course of
its
> temporal development.
> Only theoretical systems are top-down. All real systems are partly
> top-down, partly bottom-up -- simplu because of the fact, that you always
> implement the system designed at time T later, at time T+dT. Even if the
> initial design was perfect for time T (which is also impossible as the
> design itself takes time), at the time of implementation it is no longer
> perfect and needs patching. And patching itself is a staunch bottom-up.
> Another stupid question. Is A-life life? Are Chris Langton and Karl
> Simms Gods, than?
>
> 2. I would be careful proclaiming the cell an elementary component of
> life. How about organelles? Mitochondria and chloroplasts, which are, in
> fact, former separate organisms that were fused into the plant cells in
> the course of evolution? How about viruses, which are not cells but
rather
> "crystals"? Are they alive?
>
> And my main question is: Why do we always seek distinction along
> bio-nonbio? Maybe the correct question is self-organizing and
> self-evolving versus rigidly designed? Of course, humans always want the
> first distinction, which allows answering another question: why and how
> are we here? But maybe if we admit that the complexity of life (including
> us, humans) is just one manifestation of some universal complexity
buildup
> mechanism, working everywhere and always, we will loose a bit of self
> esteem for the sake of much more clear picture.
>
> Igor
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Giuseppe Longo" <Giuseppe.Longo@ens.fr>
> To: "James N Rose" <integrity@ceptualinstitute.com>
> Cc: <fis@listas.unizar.es>;
<igor.rojdestvenski@plantphys.umu.se>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 11:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [Fis] Robert Rosen's modeling paradigm
>
>
>> There are at least two crucial differences between a biological
system
>> and
>> an artificial one.
>>
>> 1- The first is built top-down, the second bottom-up. Embryogenesis
>> begins by a unique cell, which differentiates into tissues and
organs.
>> This espablishes a peculiar causal regimes, where various levels of
>> organisation are causally entangled since the beginning (regulation,
>> integration fluxes). So far, we are only able to construct artificial
>> systems by assembling parts, from bottom. And this is probably
inherent
>> to
>> the very notion of (human) designed system.
>>
>> 2- All our machines are cartesian: they are made possible (and
>> intelligible) by assemblying simple parts,
>> which may lead to extremely complicated artefacts. Then the
elementary is
>> simple, as Descartes wanted us to decompose beings (and reasoning).
>> Complexity, in natural systems, begins with the elementary
components,
>> which may be very complex. A single living cell is elementary (if
>> decomposed, it is dead), but it is extremely complex.
>>
>> One could also observe that it is exactly this elementary component
of
>> live that in no way we can reproduce.
>> We are able to construct organs of all sorts, and even assembly
>> them, but not a single cell, with its top-down generating process.
>> I think that this is compatible with the great refections by Robert
>> Rosen.
>> More may be downloaded from my web page.
>>
>> Giuseppe Longo
>>
>> Laboratoire et Departement d'Informatique
>> CNRS et Ecole Normale Superieure
>> et CREA, Ecole Polytechnique
>> (Postal addr.: LIENS
>> 45, Rue D'Ulm
>> 75005 Paris (France) )
>> http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo
>> et :
>> CENtre d'Etude des systemes Complexes et de la Cognition (CENECC)
>> http://www.cenecc.ens.fr/
>>
>> e-mail: longo@di.ens.fr
>> (tel. ++33-1-4432-3328, FAX -2156, secr. -2059)
>>
>>
>> Upon kind permission of the M.I.T. Press, the book below is
>> currently downloadable from Longo's web page above (its n-th
>> edition is out of print...):
>>
>> Andrea Asperti and Giuseppe Longo. Categories, Types and
>> Structures: an introduction to Category Theory for the working
>> computer scientist. M.I.T.- Press, 1991. (pp. 1--300).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> fis mailing list
>> fis@listas.unizar.es
>> http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
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Received on Wed Jan 25 10:33:15 2006
