Soviet Studies in Philosophy

ISSN: 0038-5883 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrsp19

Methodological Problems of Mathematical

Modeling in Natural Science

I. A. Akchurin , M. F. Vedenov & Iu. V. Sachkov

To cite this article: I. A. Akchurin , M. F. Vedenov & Iu. V. Sachkov (1966) Methodological
Problems of Mathematical Modeling in Natural Science, Soviet Studies in Philosophy, 5:2, 23-34

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RSP1061-1967050223

Published online: 19 Dec 2014.

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 Philosophy of Science
I. A. Akchurin, M. F. Vedenov, and Iu. V. Sachkov
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF MATHEMATICAL
MODELING IN NATUWL SCIENCE
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The Mathematization and ImDrovement oL
Theoretical Notions in Natural Science
The constantly accelerating progress of contem-
porary natural science is indissolubly associated
with the development and use of mathematics
and with the processes of mathematical model-
ing of the phenomena of nature. The essence of
this diverse and highly fertile interaction of
mathematics and natural science and the dia-
lectics of this interaction can only be disclosed
through analysis of the nature of theoretical
notions (for short- the nature of theory) in
general. Today, above all in the ranks of mate-
rialistically minded researchers, it is gener-
ally accepted that theory possesses a value of
its own. Contrary to positivist concepts of the
nature of our knowledge, the meaning and sig-
nificance of theory do not consist merely of the
recording of experimental data, their classifi-
The authors are research fellows of the In-
stitute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of
Sciences (Moscow).
23
Voprosy filosofii, 1966, No. 4
cation and notation in a,,reviated form. The
meaning of theory is considerably more sig-
nificant and is revealed, above all, in i t s ex-
planatory and predictive functions. Contem-
porary theoretical knowl‘edge is quite advanced
and comprises a highly complex system, rela-
tively self-contained and capable of internal
development. Mathematics is the most inter-
esting and distinctive phenomenon in the system
of theoretical knowledge, in the system of sci-
ence in general. It is in i t s dialectical develop-
ment that the internal force and dynamics of
the development of theory, in the very broadest
sense of that word, find expression. Paul La-
fargue tells u s that Karl Marx held that “sci-
ence only attains perfection when it succeeds
in making use of mathematics” ( R e m i n i s c e n E
of Marx and Engels [ Vospominaniia o Markse
i Engel’se] , Moscow, 1956, p. 66). In many
fields of research the formulation of new ideas
and concepts r e s t s upon mathematics, i t s con-
cepts and notions, and ‘is suggested” by the
latter. “Mathematics,” writes F. Pyson, “is
the main source of the notions and principles
 24
out of which new theories are created” (“Math-
ematics and Physics” [ Matematika i fizika] ,
U F N , 1965, Vol. 85, No. 2, p. 352). The basic
significance of mathematics to theory has been
noted by outstanding thinkers over the course
of the entire history of development of science.
Today the expressive phrase, “the mathematiza-
tion of knowledge,” has come into general cur-
rency as a description of the principal direction
of growth of theoretical notions in natural sci-
ence. However, with respect to the growth of
modern theoretical physics in general, the
statement that it develops primarily by the
method of the mathematical hypothesis has gen-
e r a l validity. For example, the principal find-
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ings and discoveries of quantum theory and
particle physics, starting from the corpuscular-
wave dualism and terminating with the omega
minus hyperon and hypothetical quarks, were
obtained o r made “at the tip of a mathemati-
cian’s pen.”
Upon examination of mathematically sophis-
ticated theories in the natural sciences, pri-
marily those in physics, we see that mathemat-
ics is the principal form of expression of the
principles of each, and that mathematics is the
means employed to formulate the major equa-
tions of the theories comprising their core.
In other words, the greatest value of mathemat-
ics lies in the fact that it expresses the skeleton,
the anatomy, the “internal organization” of the
respective natural processes. It is this “func-
tional” role of mathematics that determines i t s
greatest significance in the development of the
theoretical concepts of science.
The essence of theory involves analysis and
disclosure of the nature of the general, and this
makes possible expression of associations at
depth in broad classes of phenomena. The ideas
and methods of mathematical modeling reveal
the unity of all science and make it possible to
identify utterly new characteristics of the
structural commonality of the most diverse
levels of organization of the fantastically ram-
ified tree of our knowledge of nature. Revela-
tion of the profound structural ismorphism, the
fundamental commonality of seemingly utterly
dissimilar phenomena, is the most characteris-
SOVIET STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
tic trait of the process of mathematization of
human knowledge. Suffice it to recall here such
great discoveries in physics as the establish-
ment of the unity of the nature of light and
electromagnetic phenomena, of heat and the
mechanical notion of the atoms and molecules
of which bodies are composed, etc. The deci-
phering and discovery of the genetic code held
in common by all life are in essence only the
first fundamental regularity discovered by
means of mathematics among those that will,
in the not distant future, entirely change the
face of the science of biology, give it a new
logical and theoretical structure, and disclose
the profound unity of many biological phenom-
ena now seemingly utterly independent of one
another.
The increasingly intensive penetration of
mathematical methods into natural science,
manifesting the perfection of its theory, is the
consequence of a great complex of intimately
interrelated causes. Utterly objective factors
associated with the further and ever acceler-
ating progress of the natural sciences them-
selves take first place here. Lenin, as we know,
held that progress in science was dependent
upon its ability to approach discovery of com-
ponents of matter s o simple and homogeneous
that their laws of motion would permit of math-
ematical expression. Today scientists have
reached, along virtually the entire front of
natural science, lines beyond which progress
has come to be largely dependent upon the
creation and experimental confirmation of exact
models permitting of mathematical formaliza-
tion.
In recent y e a r s , another important reason
for the mathematization of contemporary knowl-
edge - -
one of fundamental significance has
emerged into the foreground. The chains of
constructs constituting proofs have become
longer in our time, and comprise a larger num-
ber of ”steps” in elementary logic. Therefore
purely descriptive constructs are recognized
as insufficient in contemporary scientific theory,
The imprecision and ambiguities of the initial
premises, which pile up from one step in the
logic of scientific proof to the next, begin, a t
 VOL. V . NO. 2
some given stage, to place in doubt the persua-
siveness of the logic of the entire construct.
An important reason f o r the mathematization
of contemporary natural science also relates to
the complexity of material production, which has
increased sharply in recent years and places
its own demands upon society. The economy as
a whole, as well as such fields of science and
engineering as space science, rocket engineer-
ing, defense against rockets, etc., presents
exceptionally high demands with respect to the
reliability and accuracy of function of various
artificial and natural systems, including those
of a biological nature. The reliability and ac-
curacy of such systems become a matter of
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life and death. It is impossible to determine
these qualities other than by mathematical
means.
Today one cannot build a skyscraper o r a
new machine without f i r s t calculating, with the
aid of a precise mathematical model, the behav-
ior of all the key parts of any complex system
of this type, in one o r another critical situation.
Moreover, medicine and agricultural chemistry
often intervene very radically in biological sys-
tems whose organization i s considerably more
complex than those we have been discussing.
To define the rising influence of chemistry upon
living systems, particularly when dealing with
successive generations, is impossible without
the techniques of mathematics.
The final reason for the exceedingly intensive
penetration of mathematical methods into natural
science is the need to bring some sort of logical
order into the boundless sea of information now
accumulated in the most diverse branches of
natural science. Physics is an example enabling
one to see that the most "compact," the most
efficient means for the codification of empirical
information is the development of new concepts
in mathematical form (for example, the notions
of the unitary properties of the symmetry of
strongly interacting elementary particles).
Therefore representatives of the most di-
verse natural sciences a s s e r t that it is only
mathematical models which save them from
drowning in the ocean of empirical informa-
tion that is piling up at increasing rates in
25
contemporary natural science.
Contradictions in the Process of
Mathematization of Natural Science
Examination of the process of mathematization
as a process of growth of theoretical notions
in science presumes, above all, a sufficiently
adequate understanding of the very subject
matter of contemporary mathematics, although,
as a rule, every definition of the essence of the
science of mathematics encounters very signifi-
cant difficulties and usually has little meaning
to an individual who had not earlier eaten of this
fruit.
Contemporary definitions of mathematics state
that it is the science of abstract structures, the
laws by which they function, and their develop-
ment and operations with them; the science of
abstract things and the interactions between
them; the science of operations (actions, rules
of computation) with things of a sufficiently
general nature, etc .
In mathematics, abstract objects constituting
corresponding structures a r e numbers, variables,
vectors, hypercomplex systems, sets, groups,
etc. The connections between them, determining
the corresponding forms of operations, a r e ex-
pressed by notions such as addition, multiplica-
tion, division, combination, intersection, trans-
formation, the law of composition, etc. It is
superfluous to deal with the fact that the materi-
alist approach to the disclosure of the nature of
mathematics r e s t s upon consideration of these
things and connections as reflections, images,
and models of particular aspects of material
entities and systems - but images and models
quite remote from the concrete, physical nature
of these objects and systems, and acquiring force
only thanks to this abstraction. However, note
must be taken of the fact that the notion of the
subject matter of mathematics is sometimes
construed in limited t e r m s , in that it is regarded
only as the science of quantity, of numbers and
of operations with them. Modern mathematics
investigates a considerably broader class of
objects and relationships, although quantitatively
 26
it continues to play a significant role at, so to
speak, the f i r s t “floors of mathematical reality.”
In concerning ourselves with the process of
interaction between mathematics and other
branches of knowledge, it is necessary to bear
in mind the historical nature of the subject mat-
t e r of mathematics. This approach would signi-
f y , above all, that in the process of development
of the science there occurs a modification of
those mathematical disciplines that interact
with natural science most strongly at the present
time. Classical mechanics is characterized by
the “application” of common classical analysis
(differential and integral calculus). Classical
Maxwellian electrodynamics is characterized
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by the use of vector analysis, relativity theory
by the use of tensor analysis, quantum mechanics
by the theory of Hilbert space, and contemporary
elementary particle theory by group theory and
extended functions. Accordingly, the mathema-
tization of knowledge and the fact that mathemat-
ical research is now investigating new material
entities and systems assume, above all, the de-
velopment of new mathematical theories. Only
if one follows this course is it possible to hope
that one may penetrate to the depths of such
objects and systems and express their essence.
At the same time cognition of essence is not
an act accomplished at one stroke by discovery
from above. The essence of things is cognized
by a deeper study of the phenomena. The math-
ematization of new fields of science therefore
presupposes that the arsenal of mathematical
means already developed for the purpose of
obtaining knowledge and mathematical expression
of the pertinent phenomena and of the simplest
external regularities be applied first. The ap-
plication of old, “not entirely adequate” mathe-
matical methods to new, more complex entities
in the process of handling phenomena yields,
in the final analysis, a highly confused picture.
The new techniques, being more generalized,
make it possible to penetrate more deeply into
essential aspects, and thereby to simplify the
picture obtained on the basis of the old techniques.
On the whole, the employment of mathematics
in gaining knowledge of new fields of reality
constitutes a complex process of interaction,
SOVIET STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
mutual conditioning, and mutual supplementa-
tion. It requires the application of mathemati-
cal disciplines already at hand and the develop-
ment and utilization of new ones.
We see in the current interaction between
mathematics and biology what is, to a certain
degree, a typical situation. Today it “has be-
come obvious,” in the words of N . A. Bern-
shtein, “that as the mathematization of the
biological sciences proceeds, this has to be
regarded not as some sort of grafting on or
implantation of mathematics into biology from
without (for just such attempts have been made
and doubtless will be made in the future), but as
the development of new, biological branches of
mathematics from within, out of the very es-
sence of the questions that are now posed before
u s by the sciences of life. Equipped (perhaps
in the near future) with a real, adequate math-
ematical apparatus, biology and biocybernetics
will merge into a synthesized science that will
become a new and higher stage for them” (N.
A . Bernshtein, “On the Road to a Biology of
Activity” [ Na putiakh k biologii aktivnosti] ,
Voprosy filosofii, 1965, No. 10, p. 78). Biology
requires “ i t s own” mathematics. At the same
time, i t would appear that the development of
these branches of mathematics will become
possible only when they constitute a logical
continuation and generalization of all preceding
mathematics. And in order for this possibility
to become reality, it is necessary to make use
of all the riches of contemporary mathematical
methods, to win a jumping-off place for the
“preliminary” processing of the vast mass of
biological data in every case when this is pos-
sible. In this respect, the application of proba-
bility theory to the life sciences is particularly
deserving of attention.
Inasmuch as it is recognized that the develop-
ment of new branches of mathematics is r e -
garded as the most important thing to be done
in the process of mathematization, that which
is most important to understanding the nature
of mathematics is that aspect which is asso-
ciated, as we usually say, with the inductive
aspect of thought (as contrasted to the deductive).
At the same time, we sometimes encounter
 VOL. V , NO. 2
assertions that mathematics is entirely a de-
ductive science. Such statements arise out of
the dominance of the axiomatic method in the
construction of mathematical theories and, in
essence, comprise a certain methodological
interpretation of this fact. However, the essence
of the axiomatic method is by no means reduc-
ible simply to its deductive aspect. This has
been borne out by special studies (see, for ex-
ample, N. Burbaki, Essays in the History of
Mathematics [ Ocherki PO istorii matematiki] ,
Moscow, 1963, pp. 245-259; R. Kurant, “Mathe-
matics i n Contemporary Life” [ Matematika v
sovremennoi zhizni] , U F N , 1965, Vol. 85, No. 2,
pp. 335-349). Deduction testifies to the existence
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merely of a given internal order in mathematics,
but no more. It is impossible to explain the
nature and essence of mathematical concepts,
their interconnections and laws of development,
on the basis of deduction alone. In mathematics,
as in all spheres of science, deduction and in-
duction supplement and condition each other.
Accordingly, the process of mathematization
and the simple application of ((ready” mathe -
matical disciplines in natural science a r e by no
means confined merely to procedures for calcu-
lation, although these a r e important. Before
one can deal with numbers, it is necessary to
bring mathematical concepts and those of the
natural sciences as such into correspondence,
and to establish sound grounds for this corre-
spondence, something that cannot be done by
deduction.
Finally, let us examine one more typical
contradiction of mathematization, which should
perhaps be considered the basic one: the phe-
nomenon of anticipation and coincidence. The
example of the mathematization of physics is
not merely evidence of the fact that particular
physical theories have “their own” mathematics.
What is most significant is that these branches
of mathematics developed independently, in
their major essentials, prior to the development
of these theories themselves and that, moreover,
the utilization of the given branches of mathe-
matics comprised a necessary condition for the
development of physical theory. Mathematics
anticipated the development of many branches
27
of modern physics, and the history of physics
reveals more than one instance of remarkable
agreement between the prophecies of mathe-
matics and experimental reality. It is this
type of anticipation in which the full value of
theory is manifested, as well as the fact that
i t s development enjoys a certain independence,
a life of i t s own. Attempts to analyze this fact
of anticipation a r e of fundamental significance
to understanding the nature of mathematics.
They testify, above all, to the fact that the notions
of mathematics a r e highly generalized images
and models of the material world, and that the
framing of new concepts and notions in mathe-
matics does not consist simply in “deriving”
them from some new field of experimental
scientific data. “Before the revolutionary de-
velopment of modern physics began,” writes
N. Burbaki, “considerable effort was expended
because of the desire to demonstrate, at all
costs, that mathematics was born out of ex-
perimental truths. However, on the one hand,
quantum physics demonstrated that this ‘macro-
scopic’ intuition about reality conceals ‘micro-
scopic’ phenomena of an entirely different
nature, the study of which requires branches
of mathematics that surely were not invented
for the purpose of applying them to experimental
sciences. On the other hand, the axiomatic
method demonstrated that the ‘truths’ which it
was desired to make central to mathematics
merely comprised very special aspects of
general conceptions whose applicability is not
a t all limited to these special cases. In the final
.
analysis, this intimate interpenetration. .is
no more than a random contact of sciences the
connections between which a r e more deeply
hidden than had appeared a priori” (N. Burbaki,
Essays in the History of Mathematics, Moscow,
1963, p. 258).
Thus, inasmuch as anticipation and coincidence
a r e recognized to exist in the process of de-
velopment of mathematics and its points of
contact with natural science, analysis of the
process of mathematization, of its essence and
prerequisites, necessarily includes examination
of the principal sources out of which mathemat-
i c s has developed.
 28
In speaking of the principal stimuli of this
development, it is necessary to consider both
internal and external factors. The internal
stimuli a r e associated with the continual pro-
cesses of improvement of the very foundations
of mathematics, the syntheses occurring within
it, and the interaction of the various fields of
mathematics. The interaction of the continuous
and discontinuous, of the algebraic and geomet-
ric principles in i t s subject matter, is of the
most fruitful significance. The development of
the theory of groups may serve as a n example
that is adequately typical and effective. This
theory arose in connection with the problems
of solubility of algebraic equations of the high-
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est degrees in radicals. It was precisely in the
course of solving this problem that it was first
noted that the property of equivalency, of sym-
metry of the roots of an equation, is basic to its
solution. Subsequently, however, the ideas of
the theory of groups came to be among the most
important synthesizing ideas of modern mathe-
matics. “The concept of the group, and the clar-
ity and uniformity that were introduced into
various fields of mathematics when it appeared,”
writes R. Kurant, “must be regarded as the
principal achievement of the last 150 years”
(R. Kurant, “Mathematics in Contemporary
Life” [ Matematika v sovremennoi zhizni],
UFN, 1965, Vol. 85, No. 2, p. 343). However,
the application of the theory of groups to natural
science began considerably later than the elab-
oration of its foundations and develops constant-
ly with the development of natural science, and
of physics above all.
Many mathematical ideas and disciplines
arise as the result of the consideration of factual
material of such a nature that self-confident
“practical” people might look upon its analysis
as no more than trifling amusements for chil-
dren. Only later are these ideas verified in
relation to more weighty subject matter. A
typical example of this was provided by the
principal initial concepts of probability theory.
“Like the other mathematical sciences, the
theory of probability,” writes E. S. Wenzel,
“developed out of practical needs. But the theory
of probability as a mathematical science took
SOVIET STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHY
shape primarily not on the basis of materials. . .
of practical tasks, because those tasks are too
complicated, and in them the laws governing
random phenomena are not clearly manifested
and are beclouded by many complicating factors.
Initially it was necessary to study the laws of
random phenomena on the basis of simpler
data. Historically, what are termed ‘games of
chance’ served this function. . . The very word
azart (Fr. hasard) denotes ‘chance.’ The pat-
t e r n s of games of chance offer exceptionally
simple and transparent models of random phe -
nomena, which make it possible to observe and
study in the clearest form the specific laws
governing them. And the opportunity offered to
repeat the identical experiment an unlimited
number of times makes possible experimental
verification of these laws under conditions of
truly mass-scale phenomena. To this very day,
examples taken from the realm of games of
chance, and similar problems on the ‘urn pat-
tern,’ are widely employed in the study of prob-
ability theory as simplified models of random
phenomena illustrating the fundamental laws and
rules of probability theory in the simplest and
most visual form” (E. S. Wenzel, Probability
Theory, RUSS, ed., Moscow, 1964, pp. 17-18).
Of course, such a choice of simple models
containing no complicating factors and serving
as the basis f o r developing new notions is not
limited to mathematics alone. The great services
performed f o r classical genetics by the Dro-
sophila fly, or for modern genetics by micro-
organisms, are well known.
Finally, another source out of which mathe-
matics may develop is provided by the very
process of its direct interaction with the practi-
cal experience of natural science. The “applica-
tions” of mathematical theory pose special
problems, and change our views of them. The
new tasks lead to new generalizations. A s an
example in the given case, we may cite the de-
velopment of the theory of extended functions,
which became not only one of the leading math-
ematical methods in modern elementary particle
physics but the most important direction of
development of contemporary functional anal-
ysis.
 VOL. V , NO. 2
The Basic Concepts of Mathematical Modeling
The mathematization of the new fields of natural
science presumes adequate development of the
corresponding conceptual apparatus, character-
ized by a high degree of generality. In this r e -
spect, the example of physics i s particularly
interesting. Mechanics, for example, began to
develop as an independent theoretical discipline
only after Galileo, Newton, and other scientists
introduced such fundamental generalizing con-
cepts a s the system of inertia, acceleration,
the material point, etc. It was only in this gen-
eralized form that mechanics became related
to mathematics. A highly specific system of
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exact concepts, permitting of mathematical
description, underlies electrodynamics, rela-
tivity theory, and quantum mechanics. It can-
not but be noted that one of the founders of
quantum mechanics, N i l s Bohr, devoted his
entire life primarily to elaboration of its con-
ceptual apparatus - which is today the founda-
tion of our cognition of nature.
A s we know, a very important task facing
philosophy is the study of the system of notions,
the conceptual apparatus of a given scientific
theory, as well as giving aid and assistance in
the development of this apparatus in new fields
of scientific knowledge that a r e only now taking
shape. And the conceptual apparatus is not
merely the language of science, as the positivists
say. One feature of the conceptual apparatus
of any scientific theory lies in the fact that,
after interaction with some range of phenomena,
it identifies the very deep-reaching connections
between these phenomena and others that at
first appeared to have no relationship at all to
the former. Then - and this is fundamental -
the conceptual apparatus of every theory dis-
closes to us connections and relationships among
phenomena of such a nature as to put us in a
position to reconstruct theoretically and repro-
duce in a system of scientific concepts any ob-
ject within the field of investigation covered by
our theory o r in any way associated with the
phenomena it studies, to rebuild them, moreover,
to any degree of accuracy and reliability needed
in practice, with respect to the numerous details
29
and possibilities of i t s future behavior.
The authority enjoyed by the science of me-
chanics, the theories of electricity, thermo-
dynamics, theoretical chemistry, and other
mathematicized disciplines of present-day
natural science r e s t s primarily on the fact
that their conceptual apparatus has already been
fitted to particular mathematical algorithmic
models for calculation of the properties of any
and all objects to which the principal concepts
of these sciences a r e applicable. Precisely for
this reason, these sciences a r e transforming
the world of man’s environment with fantastic
speed, are entering every home which possesses
electricity, radio, television, and synthetic
materials; they conquer outer space for him and
will place the thermonuclear reactions of the
s t a r s at his service.
It is only in our century that biology has be-
gun to fit its conceptual apparatus to mathe-
matical models of any accuracy, admitting of
algorithmic calculation. This became possible
thanks to the progress of biology and mathematics
themselves. A s we know, the difficulty of model-
ing in biology consists in the fact that that sci-
ence is characterized by a stronger, more di-
versified, and even a many-storied interweaving
of the various levels of organization of biological
objects. The penetration of the methods and ideas
of mathematics into biology changes the char-
acter of scientific cognition of the phenomena of
life. This may be seen with particular clarity
if we take as an example the history of the dis-
covery and study of the genetic code.
The breaking of the genetic code is one of the
very greatest triumphs of biology during the
second half of the twentieth century. Studies of
the genetic code combined the methods of cog-
nition of virtually all the biological sciences on
the basis of molecular genetics. Solution of the
problem of evolution and organization, and
analysis of law-governed relationships between
related organisms and the paths followed in the
development of particular species, a r e placed
in direct dependence upon physical and chemical
processes at the molecular level. Intensive
study is being given to the regularities of the
interconnection among the various structural
 30
levels of development of living matter. And in
all these investigations, the central, unifying
principle consists of the notion of the genetic
code, which was a further step in development
of the gene theory based on employment of the
ideas of cybernetics and mathematics.
The singling out of those relatively stable and
relatively independent elements that can be made
the basis of some mathematical model is a very
complex and difficult affair. In this regard we
shall always return to the example of classical
philosophical thought, which found, in the atom-
istic concept, the classical solution of the dia-
lectically contradictory nature of objects of
scientific investigation. We have reference to
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the contradictoriness of changeableness and
stability, variability and persistence - that
contradictoriness which w a s so vividly empha-
sized in the teachings of the Sophists, on the
one hand, and the Eleatics, on the other. The
idea of atomism dominated the development
of all natural science over the course of 2,500
years and in many respects was the basis for
the theoretical and practical advances of such
branches of science as those dealing with the
structure of matter, statistical physics, chem-
istry, etc. It was, in its time, a means for the
theoretical and conceptual solution of that dia-
lectical contradiction, with the assistance of the
notion of the atom as the smallest particle of
material existence, comprising the structural
foundation of its variability, understood as the
possibility and inevitability of the most diverse
combinations of atoms in the objects studied by
science.
The dialectically contradictory nature of
stability and variability in the subject matter of
biological research - living beings- is highly
typical. The gene theory w a s at one time a
means of purely theoretical solution of this
contradiction, and this theory has been experi-
mentally confirmed only in the last few years.
But molecular biology demonstrated that there
a r e at least two structural levels of biological
-
“atomism” the purely informational level
consisting of nucleotides and nucleic acids, and
the level of what might be termed ‘material
embodiment,” the level of amino acids and the
SOVIET STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHY
exceedingly complex protein molecules of which
they are constituted. Most of the debated as-
pects of the problem of the ‘essence of life”
a r e associated with this circumstance. A
fundamental question in philosophy and meth-
odology a r i s e s in conjunction with this circum-
stance and analogous problems of interaction
of various levels of organization of living be-
ings - the problem of the relative stability
and relative independence of elements o r struc-
tures held to be the basis of the mathematical
models of living matter offered for our attention.
A s it pertains to amino acids and nucleotides,
this question is resolved with the aid of dia-
lectical generalization of the ideas of atomism,
which was begun as long ago as Hegel and
Engels (who took as a point of departure the
serious objections existing against atomism
metaphysically understood and absolutized, a s
advanced by such thinkers of the past as A r i s -
totle and Descartes). Today no one a s s e r t s that
nucleotides or amino acids are absolutely stable,
absolutely independent, o r absolutely indivisible :
we are able to break down this stability, this
independence, and divide them into the atoms
that compose them. But by doing this we im-
mediately go outside the bounds of biology, i.e.,
we will be studying not the biological level of the
organization of matter, but the chemical (if we
proceed farther in that direction, we can divide
atoms into the elementary particles of which
they a r e composed, and proceed from chemistry
to physics).
The question with respect to the stability and
independence of the structures comprising the
basis of the overwhelming majority of the math-
ematical models offered for objects in natural
science is not at all so simple and is deserving
of the most serious consideration - above all,
on the plane of philosophy and methodology.
Further, it makes sense to introduce some
order, terminological at least, into the use of
the words ‘model” and ‘theory ,” ‘cognition”
and “modeling.” In the volume Mathematical
Logic and Its Application [ Matematicheskaia
logika i ee primeneniia] (Moscow, 1965, pp.
281-292), one may find a description and analy-
sis of thirty different notions of the term “model.
 VOL. V , NO. 2
As we know, according to Ockham’s old
principle in philosophy, new concepts must not
be introduced if there is no real need for this.
In the case under discussion, neither philosophy,
natural science, nor mathematics gains any-
thing to speak of from the fact that the modish
labels “modeling,” “black box,” “isomorphism,
o r even “isofunctionalism” are hung over the
established categories of physics, and then
philosophical propositions that are common
knowledge and even trivial are repeated in these
terms.
A truly serious philosophical problem is
arising before u s in the need to establish some
sorts of criteria for distinguishing mathemati-
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cal models from theories. As of this moment,
the following, rather preliminary criterion is
all that can be suggested: any real mathemati-
cal theory, for whatever field of natural science,
is based upon its concept of what constitutes
the elementary object. This is very important,
and fundamental to the construction of such a
theory. In every genuine mathematical theory
for any given level of organization of matter,
this elementary object is defined in utterly
unambiguous fashion. In mechanics, it is the
notion of the material point; in electrodynamics,
the concept of the vector of field intensity; in
quantum theory, the concept of a state.
Identification of each of these elementary ob-
jects was, when it was arrived at, the conse-
quence of a complex, difficult, and even tortuous
course of development of the respective branches
of natural science. Today the physics of elemen-
tary particles is seeking, with no less effort,
to develop a concept of the elementary objects
of i t s future theory in the form of sakatons,
reggions, quarks, tuzes, and other exotic cor-
puscular entities, even less familiar to the
general public.
Thus, we find that different versions of pro-
posed mathematical theories wherein the ele-
mentary objects a r e as yet defined in substan-
tially less than unambiguous form, are termed
models. In that sense, the Ptolemaic system in
astronomy was a model, and not a bad one at
all f o r quite a long time. Copernicus’ system
initially was also a model, but after the formu-
31
lation of mechanics, when that science developed
the notion of i t s elementary object, that system
became a scientific theory and, as a consequence,
acquired the traits of absolute truth, of truth
for all future times and peoples.
Apparently, the course of development of
many mathematical models in contemporary
natural science will be similar to this. Only
thanks to deep-going philosophical and meth-
odological analysis of their positive and nega-
tive aspects - and above all of their conceptual
apparatus - will some of them at least sooner
or later acquire a precision and reliability that
will be wholly comparable, on the practical
level, to the scientific theory of Copernicus and
Newton.
Cybernetic Models
We have noted above that the process of math-
ematization of knowledge demands special at-
tention and presumes intensive development of
mathematics itself. I t s intimate connection with
the practical needs of present-day natural sci-
ence is very well illustrated by the postwar de-
velopment of the whole family of cybernetic
disciplines. One cannot but recognize that the
process of mathematization of modern science
is proceeding f o r the most part within the
framework of cybernetics. There is no need to
analyze, in the present article, the methodologi-
cal significance for the theme under discussion
of even the most basic concepts and theorems
of information theory, the theory of programming,
the theory of automatic machines and self-or-
ganizing systems, game theory, bionics, and
the other cybernetic disciplines. We shall ex-
amine, in more or less detail, only a single
typical example of cybernetic modeling, one
that was, so to speak, called to life by the needs
of engineering and biology, out of the realm of
the cold abstractions of modern mathematical
logic.
This example - the abstract mathematical
model of a self-reproducing and self-compli-
cating system - deserves close attention be-
cause it is associated with the analysis and
 32
reproduction of the structure and functioning
of complex organized systems. However, in
addition to this, it is highly typical as an ex-
ample of the contradictory interrelationships
between new ideas and old mathematical de-
vices that is so typical of the majority of con-
temporary cybernetic notions.
But first a general comment is necessary.
Today, nearly two decades after the introduc-
tion of the basic concepts, ideas, and theorems
of cybernetics, this discipline comes to look
more and more like a science studying a new
class of, so to speak, non-classical “neomath-
ematical” structures, in which it is not factors
of an algebraic or topological character that
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emerge into the foreground (as in the classical
structures of analysis, geometry, and algebra),
but above all the factors of ordering, of pro-
portion (in information theory the most econom-
ical code, that containing least excess informa-
tion; in programming theory, the most concise
program; in the theory of automation, the
simplest automatic device; in game theory,
the best strategy).
All these rather diverse structures for the
ordering of modern cybernetics at various
levels of abstraction and by diverse means
fulfill, it seems to us, a single major and seri-
ous theoretical task. This is the task of bring-
ing mathematical precision and complete ob-
jectivization to such categories as complexity
and organization (level of complexity, level of
organization), which a r e of fundamental impor-
tance to analysis of the higher forms of mat-
ter. When cybernetics is applied to the study
of a certain class of processes, four principal
theoretical divisions of that science (informa-
tion theory, programming theory, automation
theory, and game theory) prove useful above
all because they comprise a unique ucalculus
of organization.” This calculus, of course, is
one that has only just begun to take shape, one
that has not by any means carried out all its
tasks, and one that has not even brought as
much order as it should have brought into its
fundamental concepts and ideas, but one that
is of basic importance to the effectuation of
any more o r less serious attempt to achieve
SOVIET STUDIES I N PHILOSOPHY
mathematical modeling of the highest levels
of organization of matter.
A s far as the ‘highest” theory of automation
is concerned (from the viewpoint we are taking,
the theory of the ‘highest” mathematical model
of the organization of matter), i t s constructs
are based on the “highest” divisions of contem-
porary logic - the theory of algorithms, of
recursive functions, the theory of Tiiring ma-
chines, etc. - and the syntheses of these pro-
posed by von Neumann for the study of automatic
machines capable of self -reproduction.
The translation of von Neumann’s General
and Logical Theory of Automatic Machines, i n
which the results of his investigations are set
forth in brief, was published in Russian as an
appendix to A . Turing’s book, Can a Machine
Think? Therefore we shall restate von Neumann’s
train of thought only in its most general out-
lines. A system capable independently of build-
ing one similar to itself must be “lined up’’ of
a certain number of standard types of compo-
nents. Von Neumann singled out twelve dif-
ferent forms of such “building blocks.” The
system is related to the outside world precisely
by means of these standard units. To i t , the
external world is, as it were, a vast reservoir
in which the components it needs float around
in adequate numbers. In the system itself, all
the information is stored in the form of various
series and combinations of the initial dozen
structures- for example, an instruction, the
program of its sequence of actions, by means
of which it builds a system resembling itself,
also “coded” in the form of various combina-
tions of structural elements.
From the standpoint of dialectics it is quite
remarkable that self-reproduction and self -
complication prove possible, as von Neumann
showed, only in a rather complex system -
a system containing not less than 50,000 active,
“working” elements and 200,000 “passive”
ones, employed only to store information. Here,
too, the transition of quantity into quality plays
a fundamental role in highly abstract, utterly
new and rather unfamiliar cybernetic theories.
Von Neumann regards his findings as a
further generalization of the ideas of universal
 VOL. V, NO. 2
automatic machines put forth by Tiiring, one of
the founders of the science of the general theory
of automatic machines. The so-called Tiring
machines, first introduced in 1936, comprise
abstract models in mathematical logic of any
type of automatic device capable, by means of
a system of prescribed and rigorously deter-
mined rules, of processing a given system of
data (information) at the input into a given new
system of data (new information) at the output.
Turing showed that it is possible to construct
a universal machine that would imitate the work
of any other specific machine, provided that the
universal machine is equipped with an appro-
priately prepared “program” which would com-
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pel it to carry out the operations the given
specific Tiring machine was supposed to do.
This finding, purely theoretical at discovery,
was later, in 1945-1946,the point of departure
for von Neumann’s proposals to put the program
of a computer into its memory in a digitally
computed form. This served as the basis for
all further applications of electronic devices
not only for computation but as universal con-
trol devices.
Von Neumann proposed to generalize f i r i n g ’ s
construct to the case in which an infinite paper
tape connecting the machine to the outside
world i s replaced by elementary structures
“floating up” one after the other, and similar
to those which the machine itself has “lined
up” within it, and which the machine is capable
of “fishing up” in adequate numbers from the
enormous reservoir that the external world
appears to it to be. He showed that if the initial
machine is sufficiently complex, it is capable
of “reworking” the structures floating up to it,
and that machines of greater and greater com-
plexity will arise, capable in theory of poten-
tially attaining infinite complexity, as great as
desired.
The theoretical constructs described quali-
tatively above a r e essentially a most important
component of contemporary theory for all the
highest forms of motion of matter. Even at the
stage of the simplest living beings, “complex”
and uncommon forms of motion of matter a r i s e ,
of a type that were denoted even in antiquity by
33
the mysterious and little-understood words
“organization,” “organism,” “organic entity,”
etc. Today, thanks to the abstract structures
of the theory of automatic machines, we finally
gain the opportunity to remove the blanket of
mystery from these words that have remained
enigmatic f o r centuries. But it must be empha-
sized that no one is proposing here to “reduce”
biology and other sciences to cybernetics. The
latter is incapable in principle of providing
solutions to concrete problems in biochemistry,
biophysics, genetics, cytology, etc. But cyber-
netic structures, particularly the structures
found in the theory of automatic machines, are
unquestionably important. They detect, and find
the connections among, the most unanticipated
aspects in the subject matter of these sciences,
and make it possible to look at them from an
utterly new and special viewpoint, which dis-
closes utterly new possibilities for rendering
them more exact and handling them, for placing
them in a single context with problems sub-
stantially more fundamental and important, sub-
stantially more significant. And their solution
at deeper levels not only facilitates the solution
of old problems, large and small, but brings
substantially greater integration and rigor to
all our knowledge, and makes possible a deeper
penetration of the world around us. The founders
of non-Euclidean geometries - Lobachevskii,
Gauss, Bolyai, and Riemann - did not solve
concrete problems in the physics of gravity
and cosmology, but merely revealed those com-
pletely new “expanses of possibilities” by means
of which - and only by means of which - these
problems were later solved by Einstein, Schwarz
schild, Friedman, and others. Likewise, the
creators of modern cybernetics, particularly
the theory of automatic machines, did not under-
take and do not undertake to resolve concrete
problems of genetics, biophysics, theoretical
biology, etc. They do a kind of work that is
entirely different, but very important to science.
They discover those entirely new and specific
concepts, categories, and regularities making
it possible to apply mathematical methods to
the study of those aspects and relationships
of material reality, the study of which by
 34
mathematical means was earlier held to be
impossible.
In our view, B. V. Gnedenko is entirely right
in asserting that we a r e living in a period when
mathematics itself is taking a turn in the direc-
tion of giving greater consideration in i t s choice
of subject matter and methods of investigation
to problems posed by the development of bio-
logical and other sciecces, and not only to
physics and engineering, as has hitherto been
the case, starting with the Renaissance (see
Voprosy filosofii, 1959, No. 1). The mathemati-
cal categories of size, space, function, etc.,
provide a very good grasp of the basic laws of
mechanics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry,
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SOVIET STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
but in biology they a r e incapable of catching
hold of the most significant aspects of the pro-
cesses of life. The latter a r e reflected much
more adequately by such categories as infor-
mation, algorithm, automatic machine, structure,
etc. And it is no accident that the latter have
come to penetrate more and more deeply into
the most diverse regions of the “purest” and
most abstract mathematics. In this one may
also s e e the influence of essentially new “feed-
backs” arising before our very eyes in the
interaction with other sciences of our day of
so complex, rapidly developing, and self-com-
plicating a system as contemporary mathemat-
ics.