Legion Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 This post is dedicated to DevaLight. Science as a philosophy and art rests on a handful premises which we must take on faith if we are to proceed. Any attempt to prove these premises only results in circular reasoning. In the end, they must be accepted or rejected. These premises are provided for us by the assertions of Natural Law. And according to biologist Robert Rosen these are the assertions of Natural Law. 1)The succession of events or phenomena that we perceive in the ambience is not entirely arbitrary or whimsical; there are relations (e.g. causal relations) manifest in the world of phenomena. 2)The relations between phenomena that we have just posited are, at least in part, capable of being perceived and grasped by the human mind, i.e., by the cognitive self. Rosen then goes on to show that the modeling relation is a concrete embodiment of Natural Law. Here is a further quote from his book Life Itself. “Specifically, the causal entailments manifested by a natural system provide the orderliness required of the ambience. Inferential entailment in a formal system is a way of providing the orderliness required of the self. The art of bringing the two into correspondence, through the establishment of a definite modeling relation between them, is the articulation of the former within the later; it is in effect science itself.†These two entirely different systems (natural and formal) are brought into a modeling relation by the establishment of two “dictionariesâ€. One dictionary encodes (abstracts) phenomena in the natural system into propositions in the formal system (e.g. measurement). And one dictionary decodes (de-abstracts) propositions in the formal system into phenomena in the natural system (e.g. prediction). Please feel free to throw out whatever thoughts you may have on this guys and gals. I look forward to it. For further reading you can see Chapter 3 of Rosen’s book Life Itself and/or go to this link… http://www.panmere.com/?p=39 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 Thank you for the dedication, Legion. The Deva is flattered. Legion inspired me to buy Robert Rosen's book "Life Itself", which I must say is a tough read unless you have a scientific background. Nontheless, I am going to go back and read Chapter 3. Chapter 2 had some equations and my Bachelor of Fine Arts mind just balks at these things. Promise I will read it Legion, and get back to this thread later! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted April 28, 2008 Author Share Posted April 28, 2008 Promise I will read it Legion, and get back to this thread later! Oh Deva, please take whatever time you feel appropriate. I believe the math was an unavoidable aspect of what Rosen was doing. Mathematics provides examples of formal systems (languages) which the modeling relation depends on. However, I've been told that the mathematics can be skipped and understanding can still be gleaned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted April 29, 2008 Share Posted April 29, 2008 Those interested in this book may also be interested in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid I think that this book would be complementary because it is an attempt to show how the human mind "uses self-reference and formal rules to allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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