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John Mikes is a Hungarian born polymer Chemist, now retired, who did distinguished research in Europe, and for the past 30 plus years in the USA. He is a master of half a dozen languages who enthuses in the joy of human communication - ideas germinating ideas. He has been active for several years on many Internet discussion groups focussing on philosophy, the nature of universal dynamics and consciousness. This selection doesn't do justice to John's ceaseless wit and charm -- both written and oral. It is a more serious take. Yet he ably informs us that Complexity has been explored before the current computational era - here exampled by Bogdanov. Human sentient understanding is derivable from many possible sources of experience. Something expressed by handfuls of thinkers in the course of human civilization, but eminently accessible to anyone opening their minds to awareness and conceptual considerations.
T E C T O L O G Y
the natural philosophy of organization in/into complexities
John A. Mikes Ph.D., D.Sc., Madison NJ USA
email: ami_kes@juno.com
(Poster # 53-1/2 - Prepared for ICCS [International Conference on Complex Systems], New England Complex Systems Inst. Sept.21-27,1997 Nashua NH USA)
Abstract:
Tectology (Bogdanov 1922) is the "missing link" of the natural sciences, the discipline of 'self-organization', the synthesis of higher complexities: the natural philosophy of organization ie. build-up in(to) higher complexities i.e. the rules of prediction when components (self)organize into one unit developing a quality, different from those characteristics observable in the assembling components of the lower complexity. Tectology domains: material sciences computer science physical and life sciences cognitive sciences economy and social sciences developing a natural science philosophy to pave the way for the development of the practical disciplines. Examples of pattern complexities: marriage, living cells, body, insect society, evolution, ecology, mind, computer program - AI, economy, language and writing, military, galaxy formations, etc.
(Composition notice: etymology and epistemology): I divert from A. Bogdanov's "originally transliterated" spelling of 'TEKTOLOGY' (as in Peter Dudley's first English translation of the 1922 Russian text - Hull Univ. Publ., 1996), in transcribing the Cyrillic "k" into a Latin "c" - sounding as "k" anyway). I borrowed the above mentioned liberty ('c' vs. 'k') from the Romans: the Greek "tekein", to build, to meld components together, survived into the Latin 'tectum' (= roof, the completion of an abode), as the past participle of 'tegere' (to cover). The Latin origin for the word COMPLEXITY comes from the verb 'plegere' (to weave) as its past participle: 'plexus'= woven, the complexus meaning interwoven. A linguistic variant: complexity is an intertwined system of usually more than one component. I want to ride this metaphor one step further: interwoven fiber turns by its 'emerged' complexity into a fabric, which carries the emer- gent qualia of a textile, a cloth, while consisting of the still recognizable yarn-components of the original - lower level - complexity. Which is a pretty good description of a "complexity": the assemblage of (recognizable) components into a unit of added complexity (ie. higher level - more complex entity), which, by its mere intricate interconnections, develops (turns into) new. added characteristics of the assemblage, unrelated to and so far unpredictable from the characteristics of the 'component' units, (complexities themselves as well), simply by the power of being built into a unit of a higher level complexity.
On A.Bogdanov and his Tectology According to Bogdanov (Dudley-Pustylnik, (1995) (a non-verbatim quotation): "The aim of Tectology is the systematization of organized experience", through the identification of universal organizational principles: "all things are organizational, all COMPLEXES could only be understood through their organizational character. This is (historically) the first identification of philosophical "complexes" in the natural sciences, to denote a combination of elements of `activity - resistance'. Bogdanov considered that any complex should correspond to its environment and adapt to it. (A stable and organized complex is greater than the sum of its parts). In Tectology, the term 'stability' refers not to a dynamic stability, but to the possibility of preserving the complex in the given environment). A 'complex' is not identical to a 'complicated, a hard-to- comprehend, large unit. Furthermore Bogdanov created a unique conception, as the first 'modern' attempt at formulating the most general laws of organization. Tectology was created by Bogdanov to address issues such as holistic, emergent phenomena and systemic development. This new constructive science builds the elements into a functional entity by a science of the general laws which determine the organization. According to his "empirio-monistic" principle (1899) he does not recognize differences between observation and perception and thus creates the beginning of a general empirical, supradisciplinary (yet not supernatural) science. In his time of mostly physicalistic view, the starting point of Bogdanov's investigation was 'organization', as an expedient unity. Indeed it meant the cradle of Systems Science and Holism. The "whole" in Tectology, the laws of integrity were derived from biological rather than the physicalistic view of the world. Regarding the three scientific cycles which comprise the basis of Tectology (mathematical, physico-biological, and natural-philosophical), it is from the physico-biological cycle that the central concepts have been taken and universalized (Peter Dudley - Simona Pustylnik, 1995). Starting point in A. Bogdanov's "Universal Science of Organization - Tectology" (1913-1922): nature has a general, organized character, with ONE SET OF LAWS OF ORGANIZATION FOR ALL OBJECTS. Contained is an internal development of the complex units, as im- plied by Simona Pustylnik's "macro-paradigm", which induces syner- gistic consequences into an adaptive assembling phenomenon (1995). Bogdanov's visionary view of nature was: an 'organization' with an interconnection into systems. It was preceding L. von Bertalanffy's General Systems Science and the modern schools of self-organizing complex systems. Lenin (and later Stalin) considered Bogdanov's natural philosophy an ideological threat to their revolutionary dialectic materialism (what it was not really) and put tectology to sleep.
New-Tectology: on an un-skewing of the physical sciences. Our Platonic heritage performed miracles in the western science and technology, based on the discontinuous series of numbers and quantities. Furthermore, in the heritage of Democritus, western science reached a miraculous level in representing the material universe by dissecting the complexities into their components/ingredients, down to the atoms (and beyond). Pl. & D. started a "reductionist/analytical/mathematical" science which served so well up to the point, when, looking for deeper understanding, new trends, methods, concepts emerged. The application of the 'old' methods and formalism led to paradoxes, to and endless debate about the new paradigms. One such requirement emerged in the past (i.e. the 20th) century: to understand - and predict - the developing characteristics, functions, (called: emergent qualia) when 'components' assembled into higher level complexity-units. This kind of study was earlier not available, not to Bogdanov, the pioneer, not even to David Bohm for that matter, before the tools for such studies, e.g. self-organizing, recursive, open, far-from-equilibrium, chaotic, holistic hierarchy of nested complexities, game theory and evolutionary understanding, etc., developed into an applicable science. Now, although far from having really reaped considerable results yet, we already can see some good beginnings. The study of the buildup-characteristics, a synthetic development, the mechanism of tectology, is a complement to the analytical view. We need new principles, new methods, to arrive at a prediction of the - not so miraculous - emergent qualia. It is not likely that our present mathematical skills will serve well for deriving such predictions (characteristics (functions) of the higher-level newly assembled complexity's quality) from the knowledge of the components' data, derived by studying the lower-level complexity. (It's like in Abbott's book "Flatland": in 2-D world's Mr. Square who could not develop an understanding of our 3-D world. Our mind, trained in reductionistic thinking, understands downwards, but is not trained (yet) in predictions of the upwards-level qualities). Granted: there are successful and ingenious efforts, but beware of the premature war-cry: "Heureka, I got it!", the unskewing of the analytically predominated mind-set requires a long, long study.
New Tectology on global hierarchy. "Global" is really the wrong word. What we are talking here is not Earth-bound. It generally stands for "overall" (in nature). Alwyn Scott described the mind's hierarchy in his 'Staircase' (1995) : components of its complexities are complexities themselves, and so on and so on. Nested it is, in the finest of reductionist-analytical (down)view. Now let us raise our eyes: where do our complexities go UPWARDS in assembling themselves? and what consequences may arise? In a sense of tectological interconnections: they 'pair up' with 'peer'-complexities, to assemble into even higher level complexities - and so on. There is no highest 'President-Complexity' (!) sitting at the 'top', presiding over nature's hierarchy. Just as we did not find a 'bottom-peon' simplicity. We just have to learn how to use the word 'unlimited'. Planck's order of magnitude is a practical limit of human representation of our bottom assembly, for both the smallest and simplest we can think of (now), just as the 'universe' is the upper level of our representational view. In the nested, hierarchical fractal lines we find three co-acting principles: MATTER (space-time limited), FUNCTION (time-limited) and IDEA (unlimited by either space or time). The fractals do connect sideways, too, with the resulting assemblages continuing the building of nested levels of complexity-series down and up. Adjusted in all directions (meaning: aspects), it gets recursive, adaptive, emergent, evolutionary, chaotic (in our evolving view). In short: tectology leads to an overall HOLISM in nature.
New Tectology: about chaos and mind. Chaos is characterized as unpredictable and disorderly. As an alternate term: nonlinear. Indeed it signifies nature's order and our ignorance to discern its 'symmetries' or even information (= David Bohm's criterion for order). Science picked a limited segment for studying 'chaology': the bifurcative, iterative, fractalous "chaos". It certainly belongs to it. I believe chaos is widely unknown, it is how nature works and our partially linearized world, (cf. Bohm's 'explicate') is the exception. Chaos is an enveloping name, it includes more information than the part, so far discovered by human knowledge, more than presently studied by physical chaologists. Our mathematics has been developed on linearity and the emerged exceptions are handled in the 'nonlinear' chapters. We have yet to devise an adequate formalism for chaos: it may be different from the logical system we used so far. Forcing past knowledge onto new findings may lead to persistent paradoxical misunderstandings and may be in the way of further progress. An example may be the recent war around consciousness. First off: consciousness is not defined, so it is easy to argue. Then again it seems to be an 'envelop' of mental/bodily functions and states, including awareness, storage, body and mental condition, actions etc. (I prefer the word MIND - similarly unidentified, but less misused so far). It is the ALL-human-level complexity, with all 3 facets included (matter, function, idea). The level is high as the components include the brain - a 10 billion-body problem, if counting only the neurons. Of course it works chaotically, in an ever changing fractal-structure, (regroupping with the changing functions). A colleague proposed to present a mutual paper with me at a '98 conference about 'a model of the mind', with the tectology included. I asked for 2-300 years to map the details).
New Tectology: on modeling and AI. Modeling is simple in simple material systems: substitute a com- position of mechanical functions by a 'metaphor' taken from the electric domain (or vice versa) and useful results can be reaped. The modeling in more complex entities is another question. First we need to understand: what's going on? We usually know only part of it. Then we make a choice to abstract those items which we deem as usable into a model. That leaves out the rest of it. Our model will represent our 'invention', the extraction, how we could design part of the substrate in our own view and need. Like e.g. in AI. AI chose mostly the neurological domain of the mind-functions, as the modelable abstract of the mind, for a computable intelligence. An abstraction. The characteristics of the chosen 'intelligence' are not including the mistakes we make, the emotional-violent mis- calculations, the changeable memes, the impressions induced by the bodily states, bad habits or stupidity. All these are our treasured qualia. AI abstracts an Uebermensch - as its projection - in a partial aspect. Excellent way for a study, furthers our knowledge tremendously, but we shouldn't shout: "Heureka, we got it!". The complexity of the mind is still much higher than we can muster at present - mimicking the mind by the mind.
On Bogdanov - past and future. The notions in A. Bogdanov's "Tectology" outlined the concepts and concerns of Complexity Theory by a full 50 years in advance of the chaos and fractal mathematics. All that we can intone is that we are still at the beginning of its understanding. An elucidation requires multi-disciplinary efforts and we may yet see some newer results over the coming centuries. Then e.g. we may start to predict such things as how a biological assembly will function after some genetic change. Most likely, though, the complexity of the human mind will still remain a mystery - ie. un-decipherable in scientific efforts - as we can think about science today.- - -
References:
Abbott, E.A. (1884): 'Flatland' [6th rev. ed.: B. Hoffman, 1952]
Bertalanffy, L. v.: 'Perspectives on General Systems Thyeory' [G.Braziller NY, 1975]
Bogdanov, A. A.: 'Osnovnije elementy istoricheskogo vzgljada na prirodu' (in Russian) [St.Petersburg, 1899] Bogdanov, A. A.: 'Empiriomonism' (in Russian) [Moskow, 1904-1906]
Bohm, David: 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order' [Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988]
Dudley, Peter: 'Bogdanov's Tektology' (1st Engl transl) [Centre for Systems Studies, Univ. of Hull UK, 1996]
Dudley, P.. Pustylnik, S.N.: 'Reading the Tektology' [ibid. 1995]
Pustylnik,S.N.: 'Biological Ideas of B.'s Tektology' presented at the Int'l Conf.: Origins of Organization Theory in Russia & the SU,:[Univ. of East Anglia (Norwich) Jan. 8-11 1995]
Scott, Alwyn: 'Stairway to the Mind' [Springer, 1995]
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