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Natural Law and the Modeling Relation

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Natural Law and the Modeling Relation
Legion
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:07 AM:
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#11
ciceronianus wrote:

"Ironclad proofs" and absolute certainty aren't required though, are they, for any practical purpose? It seems silly to demand them when, in fact, we don't, and get along very well without them. I cannot understand why we even profess to doubt what we rely on all the time, quite successfully, in science as well as "real life."

Well Cicero if we are examining an epistemology which science is grounded in then isn’t it incumbent upon us to say what we know and how we know it? It seems to me that here we must make “common sense” explicit.
We sense. We reason. We predict.
We don't always get those right.
Legion
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:10 AM:
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#12
Arkady wrote:

I think Rosen's ideas are more than just a tweak away from being salvageable, to be honest.

I understand that you don't care for Rosen, and I think that's fine Arkady. But you didn't attempt to address my inquiry. How would you explain the concept of natural law?
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Arkady
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:12 AM:
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#13
Legion wrote:
I understand that you don't care for Rosen, and I think that's fine Arkady. But you didn't attempt to address my inquiry. How would you explain the concept of natural law?

I don't even understand the concept as it is framed in the OP.

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
-T.H. Huxley
Legion
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:14 AM:
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#14
Arkady wrote:

I don't even understand the concept as it is framed in the OP.

So the fact that you don’t understand it implies that it’s bunk?
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:33 AM:
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#15
Legion wrote:
So the fact that you don’t understand it implies that it’s bunk?

Nope. There is much I don't understand, it doesn't mean it's bunk. I've never said such a thing. Rosen's arguments are bunk because the ideas are simply a jumble of pseudo-technical terms strewn together (much in the way of post-modern writers). That's what makes it bunk.

My conceptions of natural law are twofold: there are "laws" of nature in the sense of inviolable regularities (such as the "laws" of physics), and there is a (totally unrelated) concept of "natural law" in ethics. Neither seems to apply to the question as framed in your OP.
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
-T.H. Huxley
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Posted 10/24/09 - 07:50 AM:
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Arkady wrote:

Nope. There is much I don't understand, it doesn't mean it's bunk. I've never said such a thing. Rosen's arguments are bunk because the ideas are simply a jumble of pseudo-technical terms strewn together (much in the way of post-modern writers). That's what makes it bunk.

My conceptions of natural law are twofold: there are "laws" of nature in the sense of inviolable regularities (such as the "laws" of physics), and there is a (totally unrelated) concept of "natural law" in ethics. Neither seems to apply to the question as framed in your OP.

Well, my apologies Arkady, but I still can’t escape the impression that you’re saying, in essence, “I don’t understand it, therefore it is bunk.”

The natural law here that I’m referring to here and that Rosen is referring to here is akin to the one you speak of in physics. Rosen asserts that a modeling relation is a concrete embodiment of natural law, and I can’t help but agree with him.
We sense. We reason. We predict.
We don't always get those right.
Arkady
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Posted 10/24/09 - 08:25 AM:
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Legion wrote:
Well, my apologies Arkady, but I still can’t escape the impression that you’re saying, in essence, “I don’t understand it, therefore it is bunk.”

Your misappraisal is forgiven. I accept your apology.

Legion wrote:
The natural law here that I’m referring to here and that Rosen is referring to here is akin to the one you speak of in physics. Rosen asserts that a modeling relation is a concrete embodiment of natural law, and I can’t help but agree with him.

Ok, let's start from the beginning, then. Below is the quote in question:

Robert Rosen wrote:
Specifically, the causal entailments manifested by a natural system provide the orderliness required of the ambience. Inferential entailment in a formal system is a way of providing the orderliness required of the self. The art of bringing the two into correspondence, through the establishment of a definite modeling relation between them, is the articulation of the former within the later; it is in effect science itself.

As you seem to be familiar with Rosen and his work (admittedly more familiar than I), perhaps I'm just having trouble with his prose style rather than his ideas per se. Perhaps you could "translate" the above passage into layman's terms for me?
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
-T.H. Huxley
Legion
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Posted 10/24/09 - 09:01 AM:
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#18
Sure okay Arkady, I can try. But please bear in mind this only my interpretation.

The entailments between the phenomena (observables) associated with a natural system (e.g. a rock, a society, a tree, etc.) provide the orderliness required (by natural law) of the ambience (objective, non-self). Our reasoning within a formal system (e.g. calculus, geometry, statistics, set theory, category theory, etc.) is a way of providing the orderliness required (by natural law) of the (subjective) self. The art of bringing the two into correspondence through the establishment of a modeling relation between them (i.e. measurement, reason, and prediction is commuting with causality) is the articulation of causality within the self; it is in effect science itself.

That’s my attempt at a translation.
We sense. We reason. We predict.
We don't always get those right.
Arkady
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Posted 10/24/09 - 09:16 AM:
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Legion wrote:
Sure okay Arkady, I can try. But please bear in mind this only my interpretation.

The entailments between the phenomena (observables) associated with a natural system (e.g. a rock, a society, a tree, etc.) provide the orderliness required (by natural law) of the ambience (objective, non-self). Our reasoning within a formal system (e.g. calculus, geometry, statistics, set theory, category theory, etc.) is a way of providing the orderliness required (by natural law) of the (subjective) self. The art of bringing the two into correspondence through the establishment of a modeling relation between them (i.e. measurement, reason, and prediction is commuting with causality) is the articulation of causality within the self; it is in effect science itself.

That’s my attempt at a translation.

I appreciate the attempt, Legion, but it is not much more helpful. You seem to have mostly just repeated the quote.

First, I have trouble with the use of "natural law." It can (and should) be dispensed with altogether here. Or perhaps you can explain exactly which natural law you (and Rosen) are referring to. It is my understanding that, outside of physics, there really are no natural laws (and the status of "laws" within physics is questionable, as well, but let's set that aside for the moment and take as given that there are physical laws). Also, I'm afraid the notion of "articulation of causality within the self" has sailed right over my head.

Perhaps Rosen is trying to say something like: we observe reality, and filter it through our cognitive apparatus (which includes the methods of formal reasoning you pointed out) in order to make sense of it? It seems he is making some quasi-Kantian analogy to the noumenal world (the world as it is) and the phenomenal world (the world as we perceive it)?
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."
-T.H. Huxley
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Posted 10/24/09 - 09:29 AM:
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Hmm Arkady... Let me take a different approach and simply tell you what I think his purpose is in this excerpt. I think he is addressing the basis of the explicit understandings of natural systems. When we can justifiably claim to have an explicit understanding of a natural system then what does this imply? I think this is the question he is addressing.

I think natural law applies to all natural systems. We can justifiably hope to understand a society, and thus be sociologists for instance, because we strongly suspect that a society has entailments between the various phenomena associated with it.

Edited by Legion on 10/24/09 - 09:42 AM
We sense. We reason. We predict.
We don't always get those right.
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