Re: Fw: [Fis] Robert Rosen's modeling paradigm

Re: Fw: [Fis] Robert Rosen's modeling paradigm

From: Giuseppe Longo <[email protected]>
Date: Wed 25 Jan 2006 - 11:55:47 CET

> > 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.

this is what I said: artificial systems are built bottom-up, in contrast
to embryogenesis, which is top-down.
Internet does not "self-" organise: there are humans typing on keybords.
If we were all dead, the net would keep working breifly, as some daimons
would keep exploring the system and create new automatic web pages. Not
for long though, as any computer net as the permanent need of a system
manager fixing it, every few days, every few hours. And this for deep
theoretical reasons, well expressed by concurrency: the dynamic interface
between discrete data types and continuous space-time rapidely leads to
deadlocks and reveals bugs of all sorts.

> > 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?

They are not autonomous, in the sense of Rosen, they do not have
autopiesis, as Varela would put it. A fungus, though a parasite, does have
autopoiesis.

> > 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?

Physicists have learned that in order to understand one has first to
distinguish phenomenal levels. So, from Reimann to Einstein they said: the
geometry of senses has nothing to do with the geometry of astrophysics:
reimannian geometry for relativistic spaces is not closed under
homotheties (we cannot transfer Eucild's theorems to outerspaces). Even
more so in quantum physics: the quantum field has nothing to do with
relativistic and classical fields; there are no trajectories, in
space-time, after 2000 years of a physics of trajectories (from Aristotle,
to Newton and Einstein). They had the courage to separate theories: forget
atoms as little planets (a fake unit), propose non-locality,
non-separability (classical non-senses). Then, of course, once a robust
and effective microphysics, QM, has been built, look for unification
(unification, not reduction!).
Darwin did the same: at the time when iatro-mechanics still prevailed
(something like those who claim that a metazoan is like a computer net) he
proposed a theory totally unrelated to the physics of his time. We need an
autonomous theory of living matter, along the lines of Rosen and Varela,
starting with the least autonomous living entity: a cell, with its
complexity (also in QM theoretical elements are very complex: strings,
classically absurd). Later we may try to unify to suitably developped
physical theories (of macromolecules, for example). Our modest attempt is
called "extended criticality" and can be downloaded.
giuseppe longo

> >
> > ----- 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).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> fis@listas.unizar.es
> >> http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
> >
>
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Received on Wed Jan 25 11:53:45 2006


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