[FRIAM] Robert Rosen

[Gus Koehler]

 A Living System Must Have Noncomputable Models
A. H. Louie

Abstract: Chu and Ho's recent paper in Artificial Life is riddled with
errors. In particular, they
use a wrong definition of Robert Rosen's mechanism. This renders their
"critical assessment" of
Rosen's central proof null and void.
http://www.panmere.com/rosen/Louie_noncomp_pre_rev.pdf

Gus Koehler, Ph.D.
President and Principal
Time Structures, Inc.
1545 University Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95825
916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895
Cell: 916-716-1740
www.timestructures.com
Save A Tree - please don't print this unless you really need to.


-----Original Message-----
From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Joost Rekveld
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 5:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen

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have a bit more flesh around his central argument, in the form of historical
references and examples.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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