Language, Growth and Oscillations

• Interactive/Self-Organizing Systems by John Fentress, 10/4/97
  • Interactive/Self Organizing Systems by James Brody, 10/10/97
    
    

I like Jim's comments, and personally think they are right on target.

LANGUAGE AND REALITY: This is a subject of long scholarly debate. One issue that David Bohm (physicist) raised is, I think,especially provocative. We have NOUNS and VERBS. In our language nouns rule; verbs are the slaves (to nouns) of motion. What if we look at the world in reverse: let verbs rule. [Its the old story: Is it better to say a grasshopper jumps, or that a jump grasshoppers - and why (REALLY WHY)?]. The point? Nouns make us focus on entities, and the potential cost of losing sight of processes. Entities, of course, can be viewed merely as processes slightly frozen (or at least slowed down) in time. As I read Kaufman and others, part of their plea is to give process its due. I happen to agree (but without the fancy Sante Fe maths!).

Goodwin's OSCILLATIONS also serve to restrain us from thinking of fixed (frozen in time) "entities". One important form of change (and also stability, as in "dynamic stability") is oscillatory change - more, then less, then more, then less...... . Systems open, then close, then open, then close....... . Processes are stable, then change, then stable, then change..... . And so on.

Jim's silver maples provide a lovely illustration. They remain maples, but not just "the same kind of" maples. They open to the world for help in constructing their own details. They interact, and also exhibit self-organization - just like any good living system should. More power to the maples; may we learn from them!

If nothing lasts forever (with human ignorance as a possible exception {..not really...it takes human existence to have human ignorance}) then rejuvination is essential. Autocatalysis and reproduction enter the picture. Selection sculpts the "final" (never "final") products, and so it goes.

A final (ha!) point raised by Jim deserves contributions from OTHERS (not me)!! How do oscillations change their pace? What happens when they change their pace? What about oscillations of pace-changes (of oscillations of pace- changes.......>>>>)? What about coupled oscillators (are they, now, truly two or more "separate" oscillators)? Not really, so what are they?

This issues are not just esoteric garblings. They are right at the (changing!) core of the way we think about things [(sorry, "processes") - old habits die hard.]

Jumps can then grasshopper, for a while at least.

John

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