Boundaries and Barriers

I tracked down a used copy of this book in order to complete a collection of Robert Rosen's work. His essay, presented at a Sante Fe conference on the 'limits of science' is probably the most concise distillation of his ideas I have found to date. He neatly captured all of the major methodology and resulting implications from "Life Itself", "Anticipatory Systems" and the later "Essays on Life Itself" within the short paper in a very clear manner.However, when one reads the other papers here it is evident how the other presenters were still lost within their self-imposed prisons. That is, none seemed to fully grasp why their methodologies had run aground and instead presented various myths. Myths that have now been shown to be just as limiting as what they were trying to escape.It is still more disheartening to see Casti's paper and then look at some of his recent books. He obviously did not (and still doesn't) grasp what was obvious to Rosen. Rosen voiced concerns about the inability of many of his peers to dispense with their 'religious' beliefs in their frameworks and return to a more pure form of science; one where we acknowledge that all results are tentative and open to revision.It is certainly worth tracking down this paper but the remainder of the book is little more than a sad footnote to what is wrong at the heart of science at this time.