People often ask me what aspects of my father, Robert Rosen’s scientific work I think are most important. In one sense, it’s a tough question to answer because each aspect is connected to every other, so to separate out specifics means to also leave out the logic that connects them all to one another— and that kind of fractionation in our thinking about the universe has been a problem all through the development of mainstream, physics-based, reductionistic science. However, I understand the need to quickly focus on how radically different some of his work is, as well as the fact that while physics was initially developed to explain orbital mechanics and other cosmic phenomena, what drove the development of Rosennean complexity science, relational biology, and especially Anticipatory Systems Theory was Robert Rosen’s desire to understand the causal basis of life and explain how it works.

Among the things his work discovered and proved are the following:

1. Complexity vs Simplicity. These are organizational designations. They refer to system organization, including not only material particles/components but also all relations, interactions, effects of interactions, and time itself in multiple forms. Simple organization, such as that of a machine, can be disassembled and reassembled without loss of the system. Complex organization cannot be reassembled. Worse: Once disassembled, we’ve already lost too much information about the intact system to understand it— no matter how much we study what’s left of it.
2. Life is not caused by the components but by the system organization. So, there are no “building blocks of life”… the causal foundation for life is the same as for complexity: system organization. All living organisms are complex systems, but not all complex systems are alive. Atoms are also complex systems. When they are components in another complex system, their own properties are changed— sometimes radically so. We will never be able to understand life by studying dead organisms or their components. Taking systems apart for study is the wrong approach for complex systems and looking for life in the components is an exercise in futility.
3. The type of complex system organization that causes life is one that incorporates the entailment embodied in my father’s Modeling Relation Diagram, in an active form. It is an organizational type that includes information as essential components, that uses encoded models which determine what is “self” and “health (of self)” as well as models to process and interpret incoming sensory information, manage system navigation and control, predict what is better or worse for health (of self) (optimality) in all interactions— both within self and with environment. In short: internal encoded models and their predictions are what characterize life and living behavior. Life is not just reactive, as all systems in the universe are, life is also Anticipatory— Therefore, all living organisms are Anticipatory Systems. Robert Rosen characterized the organization of every living organism as an “M,R-System” where M stands for metabolism and R stands for repair. Those two functional capabilities are essential for life and if we consider how much information must necessarily be involved in those two activities, it becomes clear how exceedingly complex such systems must be! He also described their organization as being “closed to efficient causation”, meaning that they are capable of making themselves. In other words, the entailment required for making themselves is contained within the organization of a living organism.
4. The type of system organization that generates an Anticipatory System, and the model-based, model-guided navigation and control strategies that characterize all life is what I refer to as “somatic Anticipation”. The evolution of the human mind can be viewed as a more powerful, faster model-builder which allows us to recognize error in our somatic OR our mental models in “real time” (as opposed to evolutionary time) and either re-encode, or create workarounds for somatic models we cannot change. But mental Anticipation runs on models just as somatic Anticipation does. I have come to view the human mind as a second Anticipatory System that arises out of the first, somatic one, because the mind has its own definitions for “self”, for “health (of self)”, and for optimality— which are not necessarily the same as the somatic definitions. This explains a great deal of human dysfunction! It also illuminates so much of human experience, human psychology, human pathology… especially mind/body interactions and social dysfunctions. There is so much to talk about here! So this is where I tend to spend most of my energy trying to make the science understandable to people of all scientific and nonscientific backgrounds.

I think Anticipatory Systems Theory is critical for understanding ourselves, our biosphere, our successes and failures, and how we can do better now and into the future. Which is all about prediction, isn’t it? We use modeling in science because our bodies and minds already do that. Therefore, the Modeling Relation Diagram is essential for understanding ourselves, and life, and mind, at all levels of biological organization. Especially when it comes to the role of “error” in life, in mind, in social interactions, in ecosystems, and so on. I look forward to the conversations!

Judith Rosen
Rosen Enterprises
rosenlife.org | judithlrosen@gmail.com