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Modelling complex systems
BritishHomoeopathicJournal
July 1995,Vol. 84, pp. 164-184
Research review
International Research Group on Very Low Dose and High Dilution Effects 8th G I R l Meeting, 10-12 December 1994, Hadassah Hospital Mount Seopus, Jerusalem, Israel
Medicine as the art of harmony among the parts in the unity of living organisms M. DUBOIS (Israel)
Auidquid recipitur ad modum recipentis recipitura (all that is received is received according to the receiver's ability). This principle of Neoplatonist philosophy may serve to explain how the metaphysician and theologian understand global medicine and the medical experience of homoeopathy. The philosophical intuition of the relationship between the parts within the unity of the whole is both confirmed and justified. Thus, Aristotle's definition of the soul as the actualization of an organized body potentially alive and his explanation of the concept of unity as presented in his metaphysics; Bergson's intuition of the Olan vital and harmonious growth through duration; the theology of the unity unifying the members of the mystic body as the Apostle Paul describes it in his Epistles, express on a philosophical or religious level principles of truth which homoeopathic medicine puts to use in a concrete manner. The same principles can be applied to the harmony of the universe, whether we speak of biospheric equilibrium or of mutual understanding in the human community. Modelling complex systems
Wonderful but not incomprehensible J.L. LEMOIGNE (France) 'It is the task of natural science to show that
the wonderful is not incomprehensible, to show how it can be comprehended--but not to destroy wonder.' The first lines of the manifesto of the sciences of complex systems published 25 years ago by H.A Simon suggest a fundamental epistemological argument of any scientific research as of any cognitive inquiry: our permanent endeavour to understand the phenomena we perceive or conceive is an endeavour to design (and redesign) plausible meanings of those phenomena. 'To understand', that is to design and to simulate symbolic models which represent our perceptions and our conceptions, and not 'to explain', that is 'to destroy wonder' by reducing the ineffable complexity of the relations between us and the world to a 'trivial model' (H. von F6rster). The aim o f any science is not only 'to show that the wonderful is not incomprehensible' but also 'to show how it can be comprehended'. That is to say, how can phenomena be modelled? For the last 150 years or so, the usual answer to the question of 'how' proposed by the academic scientific institutions was always the same: by analysis, by reducing to simple organic facts, be they atoms, cells, molecule, gene, etc. 'Divide and conquer' was the motto of all disciplines. We rediscover today that analysis and simplification not only destroy wonder when trying to explain it but lead to a very poor meaning of the c o n s i d e r e d p h e n o m e n a : the ' f o r m a l explanation' does not make sense, it only makes forms! 164
Volume 84, Number 3, July 1995
So we reconsider the rich experience of modelling complex systems accumulated in human sciences for at least 4,000 years, reading the note books of Leonardo da Vinci, for instance; and we observe that design (or modelling--da Vinci wrote 'disegno') was the usual tool to represent natural and artificial phenomena. To design or to invent, to build through symbolic models, understanding of our changing relations with the world. The epistemological foundations of the sciences o f design is today well established from the contributions of H.A. Simon and the American pragmatists (C. Pierce, J. Dewey) and c y b e r n e t i c i s t s (N. Wiener, H. von F6rster) and o f the E u r o p e a n s y s t e m i c schools, reviving old traditions in dialectic and structuralist modelling with J. Piaget and E. Morin. We can now develop a theory of modelling complex systems (which is a theory not of 'good models' but of the cognitive processes o f model design and building), usually presented on the concept of 'general system' (initially suggested by biologists, including P. Weiss or L. von Bertalanffy), but now extended to the concept of auto-ecoreorganization and not restricted to the modelling of energetic ones. Contribution of systemic modelling to the renewal of homoeopathic theory understood as a complex phenomenon H. CAR]~ (France) Is it possible, by observation of successive and/or concomitant diseases in any given patient, to discern the links and reciprocal relations between different nosological structures? Conventional medicine interprets and defines diseases in terms of distinct nosological structures which evolve independently of each other. Homoeopathy, based on systemic modelling and an all-embracing concept, is able to discern different diseases, organizes them into complex pathological systems and endows them with both significance and intelligibility. All patients present the specific diseases or disorders particular to them, and this never in an arbitrary manner, at random times or for no specific reason. Clinical observation, moreover, demonstrates that in each patient one or several diseases are always organized and presented along the lines o f one or more complex pathological systems, revealing the presence
165 of an intrinsic self-adjusting organization, which is autonomous and makes known its own imbalance. Each individual system appears to be ordered according to semiotic criteria which are classified and codified. Provings are the classified and codified manifestation of these pathological systems. Experimenting with active pharmacological substances on human subjects in a homeostatic state is the method of modelling and simulating complex pathogenetic systems. These substances act as if they possessed an intrinsic ability to memorize the complex pathogenic structures which can be superimposed on the complex pathological systems found in the human body. Analogical reasoning makes it possible to reconcile the patient presenting his own pathological system and the medicine his condition requires, and the medicine which is liable to provoke a similar system of pathogenesis and exact mimesis of the pathology under observation. To quote an example: we can begin to see coherence in a case of sciatica in the lower left extremity following a sudden attack of constipation in a depressive managing director suffering from stress, who wakes regularly at 3 a.m. and suffers from allergic rhinitis in windy weather. Nux vomica is the ideal systemic medicine corresponding to a patient presenting the following 5 nosological elements, which are presented in a non-arbitrary manner and can be understood by taking into account all the data: --sciatica --insomnia between periods of sleep --nervous stress --allergic rhinitis --constipation Until the patient has been treated with Nux vomica, he will always be liable to suffer from one or more of these complaints or others belonging to the Nux vomica syndrome which have not yet surfaced. To quote a further example: How are we to interpret the case of a mother and her child presenting semiotically different pathological systems but sharing a common denominator in that both belong to the pathogenic system of Lachesis? This approach allows us to apply to a patient (or a pathology) and to a substance (pathogenesis) the paradigm o f general systems.
July 1995,Vol. 84, pp. 164-184
Research review
International Research Group on Very Low Dose and High Dilution Effects 8th G I R l Meeting, 10-12 December 1994, Hadassah Hospital Mount Seopus, Jerusalem, Israel
Medicine as the art of harmony among the parts in the unity of living organisms M. DUBOIS (Israel)
Auidquid recipitur ad modum recipentis recipitura (all that is received is received according to the receiver's ability). This principle of Neoplatonist philosophy may serve to explain how the metaphysician and theologian understand global medicine and the medical experience of homoeopathy. The philosophical intuition of the relationship between the parts within the unity of the whole is both confirmed and justified. Thus, Aristotle's definition of the soul as the actualization of an organized body potentially alive and his explanation of the concept of unity as presented in his metaphysics; Bergson's intuition of the Olan vital and harmonious growth through duration; the theology of the unity unifying the members of the mystic body as the Apostle Paul describes it in his Epistles, express on a philosophical or religious level principles of truth which homoeopathic medicine puts to use in a concrete manner. The same principles can be applied to the harmony of the universe, whether we speak of biospheric equilibrium or of mutual understanding in the human community. Modelling complex systems
Wonderful but not incomprehensible J.L. LEMOIGNE (France) 'It is the task of natural science to show that
the wonderful is not incomprehensible, to show how it can be comprehended--but not to destroy wonder.' The first lines of the manifesto of the sciences of complex systems published 25 years ago by H.A Simon suggest a fundamental epistemological argument of any scientific research as of any cognitive inquiry: our permanent endeavour to understand the phenomena we perceive or conceive is an endeavour to design (and redesign) plausible meanings of those phenomena. 'To understand', that is to design and to simulate symbolic models which represent our perceptions and our conceptions, and not 'to explain', that is 'to destroy wonder' by reducing the ineffable complexity of the relations between us and the world to a 'trivial model' (H. von F6rster). The aim o f any science is not only 'to show that the wonderful is not incomprehensible' but also 'to show how it can be comprehended'. That is to say, how can phenomena be modelled? For the last 150 years or so, the usual answer to the question of 'how' proposed by the academic scientific institutions was always the same: by analysis, by reducing to simple organic facts, be they atoms, cells, molecule, gene, etc. 'Divide and conquer' was the motto of all disciplines. We rediscover today that analysis and simplification not only destroy wonder when trying to explain it but lead to a very poor meaning of the c o n s i d e r e d p h e n o m e n a : the ' f o r m a l explanation' does not make sense, it only makes forms! 164
Volume 84, Number 3, July 1995
So we reconsider the rich experience of modelling complex systems accumulated in human sciences for at least 4,000 years, reading the note books of Leonardo da Vinci, for instance; and we observe that design (or modelling--da Vinci wrote 'disegno') was the usual tool to represent natural and artificial phenomena. To design or to invent, to build through symbolic models, understanding of our changing relations with the world. The epistemological foundations of the sciences o f design is today well established from the contributions of H.A. Simon and the American pragmatists (C. Pierce, J. Dewey) and c y b e r n e t i c i s t s (N. Wiener, H. von F6rster) and o f the E u r o p e a n s y s t e m i c schools, reviving old traditions in dialectic and structuralist modelling with J. Piaget and E. Morin. We can now develop a theory of modelling complex systems (which is a theory not of 'good models' but of the cognitive processes o f model design and building), usually presented on the concept of 'general system' (initially suggested by biologists, including P. Weiss or L. von Bertalanffy), but now extended to the concept of auto-ecoreorganization and not restricted to the modelling of energetic ones. Contribution of systemic modelling to the renewal of homoeopathic theory understood as a complex phenomenon H. CAR]~ (France) Is it possible, by observation of successive and/or concomitant diseases in any given patient, to discern the links and reciprocal relations between different nosological structures? Conventional medicine interprets and defines diseases in terms of distinct nosological structures which evolve independently of each other. Homoeopathy, based on systemic modelling and an all-embracing concept, is able to discern different diseases, organizes them into complex pathological systems and endows them with both significance and intelligibility. All patients present the specific diseases or disorders particular to them, and this never in an arbitrary manner, at random times or for no specific reason. Clinical observation, moreover, demonstrates that in each patient one or several diseases are always organized and presented along the lines o f one or more complex pathological systems, revealing the presence
165 of an intrinsic self-adjusting organization, which is autonomous and makes known its own imbalance. Each individual system appears to be ordered according to semiotic criteria which are classified and codified. Provings are the classified and codified manifestation of these pathological systems. Experimenting with active pharmacological substances on human subjects in a homeostatic state is the method of modelling and simulating complex pathogenetic systems. These substances act as if they possessed an intrinsic ability to memorize the complex pathogenic structures which can be superimposed on the complex pathological systems found in the human body. Analogical reasoning makes it possible to reconcile the patient presenting his own pathological system and the medicine his condition requires, and the medicine which is liable to provoke a similar system of pathogenesis and exact mimesis of the pathology under observation. To quote an example: we can begin to see coherence in a case of sciatica in the lower left extremity following a sudden attack of constipation in a depressive managing director suffering from stress, who wakes regularly at 3 a.m. and suffers from allergic rhinitis in windy weather. Nux vomica is the ideal systemic medicine corresponding to a patient presenting the following 5 nosological elements, which are presented in a non-arbitrary manner and can be understood by taking into account all the data: --sciatica --insomnia between periods of sleep --nervous stress --allergic rhinitis --constipation Until the patient has been treated with Nux vomica, he will always be liable to suffer from one or more of these complaints or others belonging to the Nux vomica syndrome which have not yet surfaced. To quote a further example: How are we to interpret the case of a mother and her child presenting semiotically different pathological systems but sharing a common denominator in that both belong to the pathogenic system of Lachesis? This approach allows us to apply to a patient (or a pathology) and to a substance (pathogenesis) the paradigm o f general systems.