The Localization Hypothesis and Machines

Abstract

In a recent article in Artificial Life, Chu and Ho suggested that Rosen's central result about the simulability of living systems might be flawed. This argument was later declared ''null and void'' by Louie. In this article the validity of Louie's objections are examined.

Neo-pragmatism: an ethical anticipatory system

“…Rosen was a pioneer and as is generally the case with all those who break new ground his work has engendered fierce controversy [3,4,15,29].…”

The reflection of life: functional entailment and imminence in relational biology, by A. H. Louie

“…A definite effort of appropriating the powerful description of the living as a computable procedure resulted in many attempts to suggest that equivalence between the descriptions made using category systems and descriptions made using hyperset theory, RAF sets (Reflexive Auto-Catalytic Systems), process algebra Bio-PEPA, etc. We are beyond the moment of denigration (à la Landauer and Bellman 2002;and even Chu and Ho 2006, 2007a, 2007b. A clever semantics is practiced: if the fundamental statement regarding closure to efficient causation can be modelled, for instance, as hypersets, then life is a computation, since hypersets are Turing computable.…”

A computable expression of closure to efficient causation

“…At present, the status of this conjecture is uncertain and controversial. Whereas some studies have claimed that Rosen's purported proof of the conjecture is flawed (Chu & Ho, 2007a;Chu & Ho, 2007b; Chu & Ho, 2006;Landauer & Bellman, 2002), their conclusions have been contested as wrong and irrelevant by advocates of Rosen's thesis (Louie, 2007 and2006), and the logic underlying Rosen's conjecture has been restated and defended (Chemero & Turvey, 2007;Kercel, 2007).…”