Ask HN: Is Rosen and relational biology nuts?

11 points

12 years ago

I've been reading about Rosen's work[0] for a day or two and can'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”.

I'm well-versed neither in biology nor in mathematics and I can't understand if this field is totally nuts or full of awesome. It doesn'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.

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?

[0]: http://planetmath.org/sites/default/files/texpdf/40938.pdf

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Itself-Comprehensive-Fabrication-Complexity/dp/0231075650

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Anticipatory-Systems-Philosophical-Methodological-International/dp/008031158X

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_and_theoretical_biology#Relational_biology

[4]: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=18217259493743889095&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en

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