Friam

Emergence paper

Classic

List

Threaded

4 messages Options

Russ Abbott

Emergence paper

My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has finally appeared in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010 edition, pp 48-56). Among other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and Humphries in their Emergence book.

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

============================================================
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

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Emergence paper

Congratulations. The core idea of this paper seems to be that
we can understand emergence as the realization of an abstract
data type. So far so good, a glider in the Game of Life can
be considered as an implementation or realization of the abstract
data type glider, at least the form. Is it possible that the behavioral
aspect is missing here? The gliders may interact which other
objects, for example glider guns, spaceships, etc. in
various ways.

Consider a distributed algorithm running in a network
of nodes, for instance the echo algorithm. The resulting
wave which propagates through the system can be considered
as an emergent property, entity or pattern, but is it an abstract
data type? It seems to be more like an abstract operation,
algorithm or process. I doubt that emergence in general is
best understood as the realization/implementation of an abstract
data type.

-J.

----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 8:47 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has
finally appeared in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the
American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010 edition, pp 48-56). Among
other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and Humphries in their
Emergence book.

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

============================================================
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

Russ Abbott

Re: Emergence paper

Jochen,

Do you really think it would have been published if it could be dismissed as easily as you suggest?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Congratulations. The core idea of this paper seems to be that
we can understand emergence as the realization of an abstract
data type. So far so good, a glider in the Game of Life can
be considered as an implementation or realization of the abstract
data type glider, at least the form. Is it possible that the behavioral
aspect is missing here? The gliders may interact which other
objects, for example glider guns, spaceships, etc. in
various ways.

Consider a distributed algorithm running in a network
of nodes, for instance the echo algorithm. The resulting
wave which propagates through the system can be considered
as an emergent property, entity or pattern, but is it an abstract
data type? It seems to be more like an abstract operation,
algorithm or process. I doubt that emergence in general is
best understood as the realization/implementation of an abstract
data type.

-J.

----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 8:47 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has finally appeared in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010 edition, pp 48-56). Among other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and Humphries in their Emergence book.

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

============================================================
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

Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Emergence paper

Russ,

If a paper contains mainly definitions,
arguments, metaphors, categorizations, or
even opinions, then it useful to ask if they are
useful, consistent and complete. A calculation
or a proof can be wrong and easily dismissed,
but a definition or a metaphor is harder
to dismiss. Opinions differ. Here it is more
useful to ask if they are helpful or not.

I think your comparison of abstract types
and emergent properties is interesting, but
for me it seems to capture only one important
aspect. The interesting thing is this: although
software developers rarely use any emergence
at all, nearly every fundamental concept in the
software world is related somehow to emergence,
because it all emerges from patterns of bits.

* Implementation can be considered as the
opposite of emergence: emergent properties
can be described as a high level abstraction
which is implemented by low level elements
(your paper "The reductionist blind spot")

* Objects and data types can be considered as
emergent properties of elementary data
(your new paper "Abstract Data Types and
Constructive Emergence")

* Instructions, procedures and functions
can be considered as emergent properties
of elementary operation codes (opcodes).
Sussman and Abelson defined a procedure
like this: "a procedure is a pattern for
the local evolution of a computational process".

* A code, a language, an interface or API, a virtual
machine or a new level of abstration can be
considered as the emergence of a new system,
because they connect two different systems.

In my opinion the last two cases describe aspects
of emergence which are not completely covered by
the paper, although they are very fundamental.

- J.

----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 2:47 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

Jochen,

Do you really think it would have been published if it could be dismissed as
easily as you suggest?

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_____________________________________________

============================================================
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