[FRIAM] Robert Rosen

[Joost Rekveld]

Hi,

apparently these articles have given rise to rebuttals, see http:// 
www.panmere.com/?cat=18 for a survey of this discussion.

I read 'Life Itself' a while ago, found it extremely interesting but  
not an easy read either. Later I read some of the essays from 'Essays  
on Life Itself", which helped. The biggest problem with Rosen's  
writing was for me that it is very concise; for a layman (like me) it  
would have been good to have a bit more flesh around his central  
argument, in the form of historical references and examples.

Later I discovered the writings of Howard Pattee (an essay in the  
first Artificial Life proceedings) and Peter Cariani (his thesis from  
1989 <http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf>  
and a later article for example <http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/ 
CarianiWebsite/Cariani98.pdf>.
I found both their writings more digestible.

hope this helps,

Joost.

On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:

> By all means have a discussion. Rosen is not an easy read, nor easy to
> talk about even. I have some grumbles with Rosen, which I mention in
> my paper "On Complexity and Emergence", but these are fairly
> muted. There've been some interesting articles recently in Artificial
> Life by Chu & Ho that appear to disprove Rosen's central theorem. I
> suspect their rather more rigourous approach crystalises some of my
> grumbles, but I haven't found the time yet to try out the analysis  
> more
> formally myself.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:41:43PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> On the recommendation of somebody on this list, I started reading  
>> Rosen's Life Itself.  It does indeed, as the recommender  
>> suggested, seem to relate to my peculiar way of looking at such  
>> things as adaptation, motivation, etc.  The book is  both  
>> intriguing and somewhat over my head.  Pied Piperish in that  
>> regard.  So I am wondering if there are folks on the list who wold  
>> like to talk about it.  By the way, does the fact that I am  
>> attracted to Rosen make me a category theorist?  I am told that  
>> that is somewhat to the left of being an astrologer.
>>
>> Nick
>>


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                        	      Joost Rekveld
-----------    http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld

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“This alone I ask you, O reader, that when you peruse the
account of these marvels that you do not set up for yourself
as a standard human intellectual pride, but rather the great
size and vastness of earth and sky; and, comparing with
that Infinity these slender shadows in which miserably and
anxiously we are enveloped, you will easily know that I have
related nothing which is beyond belief.”
(Girolamo Cardano)

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