
Ask HN: Is Rosen and relational biology nuts? - danabramov
I&#x27;ve been reading about Rosen&#x27;s work[0] for a day or two and can&#x27;t get it out of my head. He authored Life Itself[1], Anticipatory Systems[2] and  few other books and papers, and started a branch of relational biology[3]. From my understanding, he used category theory to describe living things. The central premise is “throw away the matter and study relationships”.<p>I&#x27;m well-versed neither in biology nor in mathematics and I can&#x27;t understand if this field is totally nuts or full of awesome. It doesn&#x27;t look like the field of relational biology itself is very active, but he is certainly being cited[4] by folks studying and modelling complexity.<p>Is this stuff legit? Why is there so little people working directly in his field? Does the mainstream biology ignore him because of obscure mathematical language in which he conveys his ideas, or are his ideas considered unworthy?<p>[0]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;planetmath.org&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;texpdf&#x2F;40938.pdf<p>[1]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Life-Itself-Comprehensive-Fabrication-Complexity&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0231075650<p>[2]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Anticipatory-Systems-Philosophical-Methodological-International&#x2F;dp&#x2F;008031158X<p>[3]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mathematical_and_theoretical_biology#Relational_biology<p>[4]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;scholar.google.com&#x2F;scholar?cites=18217259493743889095&amp;as_sdt=2005&amp;sciodt=0,5&amp;hl=en
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hga
From his Wikipedia page:

 _Rosen believed that the contemporary model of physics - which he thought to
be based on an outdated Cartesian and Newtonian world of mechanisms - was
inadequate to explain or describe the behavior of biological systems; that is,
one could not properly answer the fundamental question "What is life?"_

"Mainstream biology" isn't particularly interested in the "What is life?"
question (ADDED: rather, it's an interesting philosophical question brought up
when viruses are seriously taught), and is quite productive with its current
reductionist approaches. That would include, for example, MIT's Biology
department, infamous, as of the '80s at least, for not looking much above the
level of the cell.

I'd look at two things: there's a semi-joke item or two about how mainstream
biologists would never understand a radio based on their methods, and look at
the ones trying to understand the brain, or why MIT created a Brain and
Cognitive Sciences department
([http://bcs.mit.edu/aboutbcs/history.html](http://bcs.mit.edu/aboutbcs/history.html))
or some of the reasons why e.g. Jerry Lettvin was in the EECS department
instead of biology
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lettvin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lettvin)).

