Re: Category Theory and Rosen - some clarifications (i hope 8-))

[Mark P. Line]

glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> 
> I think a better way to say it is that some true statements
> are not provable, period, from inside or outside (because
> there is no "true" or "false" outside the system).
> 
> That's why I choose to think that any formal system must be
> *augmented* by some outside mechanism in order to justify
> the assignment of a truth value to those unprovable
> statements. (Note that I use the word "justify" rather than
> prove. That's an attempt to imply that the formal system,
> wherein "truth" is defined, is only part of the picture.)

I agree with you here.

I see a formal system as a _boundary_, not as something which exists on
one side of a boundary. As a boundary, it entails things about both
sides. You're not alone if you think of the sides as "inside" and
"outside", but I prefer not to invoke the additional connotation of
containment (especially when I'm using the formal system as a model of
something I don't think is containable).


> So, even the restriction that an object adhere to a
> communication protocol is too much of a restriction.  Now,
> having said that, one can probably "simulate" co-evolving
> syntax, semantics, and channels via a low enough level of
> message passing.

I can see how "messagehood" can be a useful property of our
_descriptions_ of systems, but I think I follow Maturana in having
trouble with the idea of messages being part of the phenomena. (A
message is what a message does.)


> Sure, simulation is *the* tool; but, it's inadequate.
> Scientific theory is about compression.  The idea that
> alife models *must* be simulated in order to be studied
> runs against the grain of any decent theorist.

So the limits of theory are the limits of compression?


> Simulation is a stepping stone that we must have to provide
> us with enough data about these systems to abstract to the
> higher formalization.

I'll go along with that to the extent that we can assume, in a
particular instance, that a (useful) higher formalization might exist.
In all other cases (and in the former cases, pending the necessary
epiphany), I'm happy to just crank the simulation.


-- Mark

(Mark P. Line  --  Bellevue, Washington  --  <address@hidden>)



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