[FRIAM] Robert Rosen

[Phil Henshaw]

I thought the implication was that the organization of life is an
inherently ill-posed question from an observer's perspective.  To me
that either means you accept 'bad answers' or 'better and better
answers', and the difference is methodological.



Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com 
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Glen E. P. Ropella
> Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 12:24 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Robert Rosen
> 
> 
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> Marcus G. Daniels on 01/08/2008 08:49 AM:
> > As far as detecting (supposedly) ill-posed questions goes, 
> if you are
> > willing to put aside the complex matter of natural language 
> processing, 
> > it seems to me it's a matter of similarity search against a set 
> > propositions, and then engaging in a dialog of generalization and 
> > precisification with the user to identify an unambiguous 
> and agreeable 
> > form for the question that has appropriate answers.  
> 
> But the issue isn't about handling ill-posed questions on a 
> case-by-case basis.  In fact, the hypothesis is that ill- 
> versus well- posed questions is an unrealistic dichotomy.  
> It's just another form of the "excluded middle".
> 
> A primary point made by RR is that living systems can handle 
> ambiguity where "machines" cannot.
> 
> Of course, it's true that if a programmer pre-scribed a 
> method for detecting and handling some particular ambiguity, 
> then the machine will _seem_ like it handles that ambiguity.  
> But, programmers haven't yet found a way to handle all 
> ambiguity a computer program may or may not come across in 
> the far-flung future.  That's in contrast to a living system, 
> which we _presume_ can handle any ambiguity presented to it 
> (or, in a softer sense, many many more ambiguities than a 
> computer program can handle).
> 
> - --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com 
> Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. 
> -- H. P. Lovecraft
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