Friday, January 27, 2006
[145] ß [parallel discussion on
generative methodology
Concept representations without deductive logics
Hi Paul
(W) and list,
sorry
for budding in, but I just wanted to follow up your lead about second order
cybernetics, autopoiesis and relationism (in Judith Rosen's mail).
What we
try to develop and implement at Pile Systems is a 'radical relationist'
theory that sees pure relations as the unifying and fundamental element
of any process. In a sense, this is a Heraclitean approach against the
classical Parmenidian/Platonic object approach.
The
second order cybernetics group around Heinz von Foerster, Gotthard Guenther,
Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela et al. (Stu Umpleby was a student of von
Foerster at the Biological Computer Lab BCL) did some very important groundwork
in this area, I believe, with Maturana describing thinking as next order
processing of pure relations ('pure' meaning here that interpretations are
strictly outside of the processing system) and Guenther trying to crack
the riddle of a proemial logic operator that would interweave all
those relations in a self-organizing polycontextural structure. (His former
student Rudolph Kaehr is still working in Scotland on this approach).
I agree
with Robert Rosen that the relational approach (we call it relationist to
distinguish it from relational databases etc.) is the key to mapping and modelling
biological and other complex systems, because it allows you not only to see a
system purely from its relational patterns, but also to apply these patterns in
other contexts (interpretations).
The
radical relationist approach is as intuitive as it is strange for traditional
science and IT, where hierarchical structures and data still reign supreme. To
break this paradigm of dividing the IT world in 'bits that do something and
bits that mean something' (G. Dyson) is tough (as we all experience), but
once you achieve it through an applicable technology, everybody soon will
wonder why we ever thought differently...
And
there is another important link here: once we can map complex systems in a
way that only reduces complexity instead of removing it
altogether (as is done today) we can also gain a new
understanding (including more modesty and less hybris) about our universe.
Peter
Krieg
Pile
Systems Inc