Hi Glen,

I think that’s right, there is a natural separation of functions that has to take place for a system to do its two essential things in complex relation: (1) exist, (2) operate. We also can see in Rosen’s M-R system that there is an essential unity of functions within a ‘whole’ organism, but they are distinct components responsible for the functions of metabolism, repair, and replication, with two more functions, behavior and selection, entailed with the environment. There are also five components of the system responsible for generating those functions. These five components may have generalized correlates in any ‘whole’ system, and that generalization seems to correspond with the four causes plus a 5th level unity. Maybe ‘fractioning’ a system is any disturbance to the causal cycle, which thus destroys the 5th level unity, the emergent or transcendent aspect.

I think retaining the fundamental distinction of causal components is actually the opposite of ‘fractioning’. It has to do with the method of decomposition. As Rosen said, there is a world of difference with complex systems in how they are taken apart. In order to have thoughts about systems we MUST take them apart somehow in to various conceptual aspects. If we don’t then all we can say is what a baby begins with pointing at everything …. daa!! But there is a way to take them apart analytically or even physically that doesn’t destroy the wholeness of these five aspects, which is really a five-way complementarity that creates a holographic unit, a fractal. Koestler called it a holon, knowing only its general properties of being both whole and part at the same time. Now we know why.

The example I like to use is taking apart a cat (I don’t really hate cats, I like them, but for some reason it is traditional in science to pick on them). If you take a cat apart by separating any of these five complements, we can safely say that putting it back together will not result in a cat. But it is possible to do organ transplants and save the cat because that is apparently removing a whole sub-system. In ancient views of the whole it is said that a whole system decomposes into whole systems and also builds whole systems. So, we need to know about that.

I see it as a matter of destroying, ignoring, or reducing the unity of the five components of a whole – taking one of them and considering it alone; or in the case of mechanisms taking two of them, state and dynamics, as ‘all there is’, except for implicit thought about it, or scientific models. That, in effect, combines the other three and reduces them to one symbolic representation of the dynamical system. When that is done, you have a mechanism and have lost the complexity that exists between the other two causes and hence the unity of all four (the 5th aspect).

Sorry if this is getting too long…….but to complete the thought:

What I was referring to is a budding theory of social systems in which the same idea is applied. In the ancient Vedic system there were four divisions of society. These have been corrupted in modern times into the caste system, but in ancient times it seems that they may have operated quite well to produce a sustainable society that lasted a millennium or more. The four system divisions (the fifth level is their unity, or close causal linkage) are the same as the divisions we find in every society today, with various levels of conflation between the divisions. They are workers, merchants/ministers, rulers/warriors, and sages (including priests, scientists, elders, etc.). There are epic stories about how peaceful kingdoms fell into ruin as a result, mainly, of conflating the priest and ruler class. But similar problems might arise from conflating any of the divisions. Even in recent models where workers can be part owners of the business and participate in decision-making, the functions themselves must be kept distinct. So, the problem that crept into this system in the West was conflation of the causes, and the problem that crept into it in the East was making them too rigidly separated. It has to be a natural harmony so they are mutually sustaining. No one can really exist without the others.

JohnK

PS Let me know if you mind me copying this to the Relational Science Blog

On Jun 19, 2014, at 9:45 AM, glen ep ropella <gepr> wrote:

On 06/18/2014 02:49 PM, John Jay Kineman wrote:

There needs to be
processes in place to ensure that, at personal and societal levels. In
other words, thinking outside of ourselves a bit, but also applying a
natural process that balances values.

Very interesting post! Forgive me if I over-simplify. But it sounds to me like you’re saying something like this. That the separation of concerns is a means to the end of collective/social thinking. If I get that right, then that’s a _very_ counter intuitive insight. Normally, especially on this list, we think of “fractionating” as a limited/lossy way of thinking. I’ve long had a problem with that, especially in the context of the transpersonal/social objectives of mainstream science, as you well know. I tend to think the separation of concerns in science (focusing on repeatability, testable — concrete — hypotheses, etc) is a means to the end of the societal construct that is science. But you’re couching that in terms of ethics, morality, governance, and spirituality…. something I often find myself thinking about, but in a much less disciplined way than I think about science and technology.

And even if I got it wrong, I’m still happy because you forced me to think in a different way. Thanks!