Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
 
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All ,
Here attached and below is my attempt at an annotated abstract of the Crutchfield chapter. I can't imagine anybody gives a damn, but having put in many hours of work on it, I HAD to send it somewhere, and you-all seem appropriate victims. lord knows I would love it if somebody out there could comment and/or fill in where my summary is weak.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([hidden email]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] Crutchfield, James P. ( 2008) Is Anything Ever New? Considering Emergence. In, Bedau, M and Humphreys, P. Emergence: Contemporary readings in philosophy and science. Accepting the notion that emergence is the coming-into-being of something new, Crutchfield interprets novelty in computational terms. His desire to make such a re-interpretation is justified by the observer-dependency of the criteria commonly used to support the assertion that some classically emergent phenomena such as the BZ reaction and Benard cycles are new In these cases, the newness is defined by the theorists failure to anticipate the outcome. To escape the arbitrariness[1] of defining emergence in terms of the weak theories of its describers, Crutchfield suggests that properties should only be regarded as new if they are intrinsic: i.e., new from the point of view of the system of which they are part and new in ways that increase the functionality of that system. For example, he writes Competitive agents in an efficient capital market control their individual production-investment and stock-ownership strategies based on the optimal pricing that has emerged from their collective behavior. (p 271) and What is distinctive about intrinsic emergence is that the patterns formed confer additional functionality which supports global information processing. (p. 272). In intrinsic emergence, the system itself, or a subsystem within it, forms a model of the system, and it is by reference to changes in this internal model that the system is judged[2] new. Such internal models are prone to the same tradeoff between verisimilitude and completeness that afflicts any external scientific model. The best compromise in this tradeoff can, according to Crutchfield be taken as the best description[3] of the actual structure of the system. But in what terms do we evaluate this outcome? One solution is to employ ideas from the theory of discrete computation, since all a scientist can ever know is his data stream and since analyzing structure in streams of data is what computation theory understands best.[4] Computational theory answers these sorts of questions in terms of the classes of machines it can recognize in the data stream.
the architecture of the machines themselves represents the organization of the information processing, that is, the intrinsic computation. (p 276) He thus provides the following definition of emergence: . A process undergoes emergence if at some time the architecture of information processing has changed in such a way that a distinct and more powerful level of intrinsic computation has appeared that was not present in earlier conditions. (p279) The most promising area for the application of these ideas is in resolving the contemporary debate on the dominant mechanisms operating in biological evolution. (p. 279). None of the protagonists in the argument between biological Selectionist, Historicist, and Structuralist approaches to evolution have an adequate theory of biological structure[5]. Crutchfield proposes a computational mechanics to explain evolutionary changes in structure in which innovation occurs via hierarchical machine reconstruction. His conclusion is that With careful attention to the location of the observer and the system-under-study, with detailed accounting of intrinsic computation, quantitative measures of complexity, we can analyze the patterns, structures, and novel information processing architectures that emerge in nonlinear processes. In this way, we demonstrate that something new has appeared. [p 284] [1] This attempt to escape the intentionality [ i.e., the point-of-viewed-ness] of observation seems doomed to me. The notion of intrinsic that we use to discover what the system is doing is itself extrinsic to the system. It is baffling to me that Crutchfield doest seem to see that to bring the whole structure of machine computation to bear on innovation particularly biological innovation is to impose something foreign on it, just as surely when we claim that a benard cycle or a BZ reaction creates a new structure. The fact that Crutchfield is comfortable with computational models doesnt make them any the less foreign to the domain they are applied to. I MUST be missing something here. [2] Judged by whom? The internal observer, the external observer, or both? But isnt the internal observer just a model employed by the external observer to aid in understanding the behavior of the system? [3] This is or is close to a philosophical procedure known as Inference to the Best Explanation. An explanation is taken to be true of the thing it explains when that explanation meets criteria of Likeliness and Loveliness. Likeliness is it fit with data and Loveliness is its simplicity and coherence. Anybody who wants to get clear on this should have a look at Peter Liptons Inference to the Best Explanation. [4] I tried to clarify in our discussions whether you computational folks believe that a machine can discern a pattern in a data stream without a theory of pattern. My intuition tells me no, but I cant get clear on what you and Crutchfield think. [5] I dont think there is any escape from the fact that evolution is a historical theory. It is an attempt to understand what happened. Now, I suppose, one could make the same objection concerning any experimental science by claiming that the theories of experimental scientists are just the attempts to understand the history of what happened in their laboratories, as opposed to understanding something more transcenden. I guess the difference between a historical theory and a non-historical one boils down to the issue of replication. If one attempts to explain why humans evolved the task seems historical; if one asks a more general question, Why do highly social, intelligent, and adaptive species evolve? suddenly the problem becomes more scientifically tractable because we have the possibility of replication. > [Original Message] > From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Date: 11/3/2009 10:06:28 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?" > > Does the enthusiastic response to Nick's seminar suggest having it > held on-line for those unable to show up at the Santa Fe Library? > > I'm sure it could easily be done with skype or some similar technology. > > I ask because we are exploring ways to address "higher education" in > Santa Fe. Santa Fe is pretty rural, so does not have a university to > call its own. It *does* have several schools, profs, PhDs, think- > tanks and so on, but not organized yet into access to higher > education. (i.e. upper undergraduate through graduate studies). > > Nick is doing good work in this area .. he can tell you more if you > ask him. > > -- Owen > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Crutchfield-annotated.doc (49K)
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by glen e. p. ropella-2
glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Thus spake Ted Carmichael circa 11/02/2009 11:59 PM: > >> Yes; I will now call you "Glen the pedant." ;-) >> > > That's not near good enough, since I'm poorly educated and an > anti-intellectual... from Texas no less... You'd have to include > something about hypocrisy or hubris, too... hypocritical hubristic > pedant? [grin] > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 11/04/2009 08:02 AM:
> ..with a chip on his shoulder!!! ;-) ;-) Right! I dare you to knock it off! -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 11/04/2009 08:02 AM: > >> ..with a chip on his shoulder!!! ;-) ;-) >> > > Right! I dare you to knock it off! > > Not a chance! Carry on! Fun Wikipedia facts: The "Don't Mess with Texas" campaign was credited with reducing litter on Texas highways 72% between 1986 and 1990 and, in The Simpsons 17th season episode The Italian Bob, Homer waves the American flag while yelling "Don't mess with Texas" at the luggage arrival in the Italian airport, contrasting Lisa's choice of hiding her citizenship. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Glen,
Thou sayst: I tend to think emergence is a fiction or, > at best, an illusion borne out of each person's self-centeredness. Gradually, finally, I feel I am getting enough of a grip on "emergence" to try work with this assertion. It applies to only some of the concepts of emergence that we have so far been able to explicate. These are (1)Logical or nominal emergence: An emergent property of an aggregate is just one that is logically incompatible with the properties of the elements of the aggregate. Like "aggregate", for instance. "Aggregativity" is a nominally emergent property. (2) Surprisogenic Emergence: A property of an aggregate is emergent if we don't understand how it arises from the elements of the aggregate. Somebody in the seminar today called this property Surprisivity. I think the term is a keeper. 3. Wimsattian. A property of an aggregate is emergent if it depends on the order of appearance or position of the elements within the aggregate. (On this account, most aggregates have at least some emergent properties.) 4. Computational Emergence: A result is emergent if there is no way to compute it except by running the program. 5. Crutchfieldian Emergence: A system is emergent if the best way to model it is to attribute to the system a model of itself. I.e, the best model of the system is a model- model. An example of this type of model is the socalled theory-theory of infant cognition. I think your rejection of emergence applies only to (2) above.... and possibly (4), if we understand "no way" to mean "no way we have thought of yet". But I bet you disagree. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([hidden email]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe] > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> > To: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> > Cc: Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]>; Charles Wesley Demarco <[hidden email]>; Chip Garner <[hidden email]>; Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>; Jim Gattiker <[hidden email]>; maryl <[hidden email]>; Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]>; Michel Bloch <[hidden email]>; nthompson Thompson <[hidden email]>; Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]>; Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> > Date: 11/5/2009 4:16:52 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?" > > Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 09-11-05 12:23 PM: > > 1 - The language used by Crutchfield is specific to his peers and > > domain. Thus "closure" is a very important concept, but easily > > misunderstood by non-peer readers. I tried to point most out .. > > including closure .. but there are so many as to make the task difficult. > > Yes, it's always seemed to me that Jim's a bit of a "job security" type > of guy. Every one of our "science lunches" that he was at ended up > filled with hermeneutics and word redefinitions. So, decoding his > writing is always a deep effort for me. In the end, though, it's rewarding. > > > 2 - I actually held a brief "tutorial" on automata. I printed out a 1 > > page (2 sided) set of passages from Sipser's book on the three main > > types, and made the point that Languages are sets of Strings comprised > > of Symbols, and that each level of automata had an equivalence to a > > language. I.e. Deterministic Finite Automata have an equivalence to > > Regular Expressions. We even included the n-tuple definition, simply to > > show that the simple machines are easily formalized. No homework was > > given! :) > > Ugh! I'm jealous of the community you guys live in. To get a group of > people to sit around talking about automata is damned near impossible > > > I really hope we are not yet again creating silos. I'm trying to get my > > head around the philosophic approach comfortable to non-technologists, > > and even like some of it. But there does seem to be a gap hard to > > bridge when discussing things as formal as e-machines. > > Specialization is required. It can't be avoided. The trick is how > _snarky_ we are to each other when approached by a deme-hopper. ;-) > Even in scientific and technical papers, you can detect the snarky > people who actively obfuscate their meaning with fancy words, inside > jokes, and overly complicated concepts. So, we'll always have this > balance between the necessary specialization and the 2 types of people, > those who think secrecy and hermeneutics are power and those who think > openness and bluntness are power. (I'm in the latter category, fwiw.) > An anti-philosophy bias is part of the requisite specialization. But > it's possible that philosophers don't evenly distribute across the > secret-open spectrum, making the bias easer to adopt. > > > I'm getting a bad reputation as a "formalist" .. which I'm not, IMHO. > > Its just that I'd like to include it when appropriate. Understanding > > Emergence is just such a place. > > I'm not so sure, actually. I tend to think emergence is a fiction or, > at best, an illusion borne out of each person's self-centeredness. > Formalizing it just makes it seem real.... like setting a plate at the > dinner table for an imaginary friend. ;-) But I'm willing to play along > anyway. Worst case, I'm proven wrong and eat crow. Best case, I learn > lots on the way. > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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And I would add:
6. A property of a class of entities is emergent if it is defined for entities of that class (and their subclasses) but not for entities of other classes. -- Russ On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: Glen, ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 11/05/2009 05:04 PM:
> I think your rejection of emergence applies only to (2) above.... and > possibly (4), if we understand "no way" to mean "no way we have thought of > yet". But I bet you disagree. Naaa. I don't really disagree. I said I TEND to think that emergence is fictitious. Until I see a definition or construction of it that I can _use_ to get my work done, it's a useless concept, regardless of whether it exists or not. I don't frankly care if it exists. What matters is whether it can be used for some purpose (other than passing the time arguing with bright people on e-mail lists ;-). -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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100%, complete, total unequivocal agreement w/Glen.
--Doug -- Doug Roberts [hidden email] [hidden email] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:15 AM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote: Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 11/05/2009 05:04 PM: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
I agree that defitions, like everything else in science, should be heuristic.
So, I suggest we define an emergent property as one that depends on the arrangement or timing of the elements that make up the whole. In so defining emergence, we are led to ask, in every case of putative emergence, what is the particular arrangment or timing of presentation of the parts that makes this property possible.
Now, the tricky bit comes when we SUSPECT that a property is emergent but have not yet discovered (or think perhaps we may NEVER discover) the arrangments of parts that makes it possible. I gather that some properties of CA's fall into that category. Not sure what to do. We could, I suppose, define a loose category of "putative emergence" using surprise as a criterion, but reserve the term "emergent" itself for a property whose dependence on arrangment and/or timeing has been demonstrated.
It's heuristic because it leads to research.
Nick
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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One problem with Nick's proposed definition is that it will label as emergent all sorts of uninteresting properties -- such as the sequence of characters in this message. I'm not talking about the semantics of the message or anything at all interesting, just the sequence of characters. That satisfies both of Nick's criteria.
So does the arrangement of molecules of air in your kitchen at exactly 3:00pm tomorrow. That satisfies the criterion of depending on the arrangement of elements. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
The arrangement is indeed dependent on the arrangement, but that's a tautology, and I dont think I am committed to tautologies because of my allegiance to Wimsattian emergence. The MEANING of the words of this sentence is indeed emergent since it is dependent on the arrangement of the letters. I am happy with the implication that a great many properties become emergent under the defintion. Contra Searle and a bunch of other people, I think emergence is as common as dirt .... well perhaps not quite that common.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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If something satisfies a definition (X is emergent if the elements of x are dependent on their arrangement ...) then what sense does it make to say that the definition doesn't apply to if it's satisfied trivially? It's still satisfied.
(Of course the dirt in your garden is also emergent under this criterion.) It would seem that every property that doesn't abstract away arrangement and time becomes emergent. The mass of an aggregation is not emergent because mass abstracts away arrangement and time. -- Russ A On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In an attempt to defend Nick's definition (though I liked it better when
he offered the categories of definitions than when he tried to pick one as
proper):
I suspect the statement "the series of letters in this sentence depends on the series of letters in this sentence", doesn't work, because the letters are not an element of the letters. That is, the definition offered requires a statement about something and its elements, not something and itself. Thus, you would need to say that "the sentence depends on the series of letters in the sentence", which is not terribly interesting to me, but is certainly not a tautology or otherwise trivial. The only way I can see for you to try to argue back is to place especial emphasis on "the series" is the first phrase and "the letters" in the second. However, as soon as you are willing to consider "the sequence" as a real entity existing on a higher level, you are admitting emergence, and so the claim is not trivial (i.e., you have implicitly admitted from the start that "a sequence" is a variety of emergent). Eric On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 08:35 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote: Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Yeah. Like Eric Said!
n
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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I don't think Eric's point goes very far. A page with letters on it has letters as elements. According to the proposed definition of emergence that page--with its component letters--is emergent. Also, it doesn't matter whether the letters are arranged to have a meaning--in English or any other language. Any random collection of letters is emergent according to the proposed definition. It doesn't seem particularly useful to me to say that.
-- Russ A On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Russ,
I said: So, I suggest we define an emergent property as one that depends on the arrangement or timing of the elements that make up the whole.
You said: According to the proposed definition of emergence that page--with its component letters--is emergent.
I say: But a page is not a PROPERTY. I am prepared to stipulate that under "my" defintion (Wimsatt's definition) a great many boring properties are emergent, but you are taking it too far. It does have to be a property and the property cannot be a restatement of the arrangement or ordering of the elements that is the occasion for the emergence. And I do stipulate that using W.'s definition I will later have to shoulder the burden of identifying which sorts of emergence are interesting.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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OK. Then we have to ask what we mean by a property. One standard definition is that a property is a predicate, i.e., a function mapping a thing to True or False. It then seems that as I mentioned before, according to the proposed definition, non-emergent properties are those that have factored out dependencies on the arrangement or timing of the elements that make up the whole [thing] -- a standard example being mass.
So is that approach as good, i.e., to define the property (of properties) of being non-emergent. A property is non-emergent if it has factored out any dependencies on arrangement ... . I put it that way because if we suppose that we are talking about "reality," which is at one basic level an arrangement of stuff in time and space, then when we do science or make other abstractions about the world, we sometime factor out features of the world that we find can be ignored for certain purposes. When we can make such abstractions and they turn out to be useful, we have made a scientific advance. So I'm not criticizing doing this: mass in Newtonian physics has worked quite well. But doesn't this imply that according to the proposed definition, emergent properties are those that haven't (completely) factored out that aspect of reality? Would Newtonian momentum be non-emergent because it depends on directionality (arrangement) and speed (which depends on time)? How about statistical properties, which factor out arrangement and time? Wouldn't the proposed definition say that pressure, for example, is non-emergent because it doesn't depend on arrangement or time? -- Russ A On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 9:28 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
This is good Russ; we are getting somewhere. we have locked horns. Now we can PUSH.
Please see below.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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Looks good to me. I'm supposing that this can all be edited later if we wish so that this sentence, for example. may or may not get into the final version.
I'm realizing that I've immediately started to feel self-conscious about what I'm writing. But if we allow for editing, that feeling will probably recede. NST===> Now we can PUSH. <===nst Speaking of pushing, the thing about pressure is that it seems like one of the standard examples of emergence. It's emergence at a relatively simple level--what I call static emergence--but emergence nevertheless. You did point out that it depends on the gas being inside the container. But is that enough for it to pass the test of being dependent on arrangement? Pressure is a property of what? Not of the gas and the container but only of the gas in a confined area. The mechanism of confinement is presumably not relevant. According to Eric Weisstein, pressure is force per unit area, which I think is the standard definition. So what does it mean to ask whether pressure is an emergent property? What does it mean to say that pressure is a property at all? Presumably it means that it is a property of whatever is applying a force to an area. The only reason we can talk about force per unit area is that we have statistically eliminated/aggregated the effects of the individual collisions of the gas molecules with the surface. So pressure would seem to be an emergent property (intuitively understood) of a gas that is understood scientifically by factoring out(!) the specific arrangement of elements. That seems to be where the contradiction arises. It's exactly the opposite of requiring that emergence depend (explicitly) on arrangements in time or space. What about other static properties? What about hardness? Steven Weinberg notes that hardness is an emergent property of diamonds -- and that they have that property because of the way the carbon molecules are arranged. But the reason an object has a property is different from the property itself. If one wants to talk only about a property itself, a property that (let's assume) could be implemented in a number of different ways, then the particular way hardness is implemented in diamonds need not be fundamental to the property of hardness. So again, it seems that the property of hardness (as distinct from the mechanism of its implementation) factors out time and space. That, of course, is my position. A property is emergent if it is a property of a level of abstraction. It makes no difference (according to me) how that property is implemented. Presumably a level of abstraction could be implemented in any number of ways. To take an example from my own field, many devices are Turing complete, meaning that they are capable of computing any computable function. Being Turing complete is a property. Is it emergent? Not according to the requirement that it depends on an arrangement of time and space. There are numerous different ways of building Turing complete devices. Perhaps each one depends on a particular arrangement of component elements. But no particular arrangement is essential to being Turing complete. -- Russ On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
OK, so to you, I gather, emergence is just "nominal". The words at one level of abstraction do not apply readily to the entities at a lower level, and so emergence ... uh ... emerges.
So, you want to say, pressure is an emergent property of an arrangement of gas molecules in which they are all piled up on one place and all absent from another place nearby.
I hope others at this point will see the error of my ways, but.... I think I have to sign on to that.
Does anybody else remember that part of Wimsatt that I have coded in my brain as "nothing that is emergent can be studied by scientists". I know that is wrong, but what is it that he said that was like that. Roger??? Or are you in Chicago. Can you THINK in Chicago???
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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