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[PDF] Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems | Semantic Scholar

Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems

A. Louie
Published 1 June 2010
Sociology
Foresight

Purpose – This article aims to be an expository introduction to Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems, the theory of which provides the conceptual basis for foresight studies.Design/methodology/approach – The ubiquity of anticipatory systems in nature is explained.Findings – Causality is not violated by anticipatory systems, and teleology is an integral aspect of science.Practical implications – A terse exposition for a general readership, such as the present article, by definition cannot get into too many details. For further exploration the reader is referred to the recent book More than Life Itself by the author.Originality/value – The topic of anticipatory systems in particular, and methods of relational biology in general, provide important tools for foresight studies. It is the author’s hope that this brief glimpse into the world of relational biology piques the interest of some readers to pursue the subject further

Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems
[PDF] Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems | Semantic Scholar

facilitationguru 8:08 am on January 10, 2022

In my view, Rosen developed a trivial, obviously true (meta)model -4th stage. Any system, given enough time, will develop itself into an anticipatory system. It follows naturally from Ashby’s law, the law of the requisite variety. Every self-sustaining (self managing, self developing, self organising,….) system “requires” modelling itself like it’s domain (environment, context, territory,….) and therefore “acquires” the requisite varieties.

Rosen failed to notice (or I didn’t notice) re-entry: a formal system, developing itself (decoding (!) behaviour into causal entailments), distinguishes itself from the natural system – creating and maintaining a boundary – , making distinctions (encoding natural entailments) about the natural system (encoding inferential entailments) which it uses in decoding behaviour into causal entailments] (I’m using the ] to signal re-entry).

To say it differently: the formal system is both apart from the natural system and a part of the natural system. Which explains why we – as human beings – perceive it as-if it’s anticipatory. It’s only anticipatory from the perspective of a formal system which excludes teleological causes, – also known as classical (logical) science. I would have called these (bio-logical) systems participatory systems. Which they naturally are.
- antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 8:21 am on January 10, 2022
  
  Any sufficiently deep insight is, of course, trivial 🙂