Friam Digest, Vol 48, Issue 25

[Nick Thompson]

Glenn,

You wrote:

Was that conversation on this list?  I'd like to go back and read it.  A
> Gmane search turned up nothing.
>

No, unfortuantely  The Conferesation was at Friday Meeting two weeks ago.
We have also been working also on a possiblity you raise, that emergence
might actually be a stage in the transformation of understanding in PEEPLE.
A form of surprise:  As, "we say a phenomenon is emergent when what we know
about the parts gives us no reason expect the form of the whole".  So
emegent does refer to something in the world, but only something as seen
from a particular angle by a person with a particular history.  

am eagerly awaiting the reading of Eric Smith's post which I have not yet
figured out how to extract from his message.  

Nick

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:03:55 -0700
> From: "Glen E. P. Ropella" <gepr at tempusdictum.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence as stop gap
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <46794FEB.9060506 at tempusdictum.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > any phenomena that we all agreed were cases of emergence.  I began to

think
> > we might fail in this way when one of us objected to the example of
> > Hydrogen, Oxygen making water, which seemed to me about as emergent as
> > something could get.  At that point, we would still not be skunked,
because

>
> Was that conversation on this list?  I'd like to go back and read it.  A
> Gmane search turned up nothing.
>
> It's odd that one would think of water as emerging from hydrogen and
> oxygen.  A question for those who believe that is:  "Then does that make
> all molecules emergent?"  There are plenty of complicated processes that
> go into the construction of any molecule, many of those are more
> complicated than water.
>
> I suspect the question above will seem to miss the point with many
> Emergentists (Emergentites?  Emergencies? ... hmmm).  The point being
> that emergence and perception are intertwined.  Water is perceived in a
> very different way than masses of hydrogen or oxygen are perceived by
> humans.  Many people who try to categorize "emergence" will attribute
> this to some fundamental role of human expectations.  But, I suspect a
> worm, ant, or tree (were we able to communicate with them) would also
> grok the difference between water and hydrogen, even without our
> neocortex.  This leads many others who like to categorize "emergence" to
> talk of physical states of matter.  Water, in massive aggregation, acts
> one way.  Water, in isolated molecules, acts another.  Hence "emergence"
> is defined in terms of some sort of composition operator (e.g. summation).
>
> In the end, it all boils down to whether or not a thing ("water" can be
> a thing) acts or is acted upon as a unit, distinct from the actions (or
> reactions) of the things around it or its constituents (water
> molecules).  Likewise, the water molecule acts different from the other
> molecules around it and from its constituents.  So, when considering
> water, there are at least two levels of emergence.
>
> But, so what?  Taken this way _everything_ is emergent.  I even heard a
> guy named Terry Bristol claim that the universe is a kind of emergent
> cycle where the emergent things at the bottom emerge from the emergent
> things at the top in a kind of ourboros.  And that makes the word
> "emergent" completely useless.
>
> - --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
> temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFGeU/rZeB+vOTnLkoRAhNTAKCcqrSzOEzUiqcE3gaukqcw6HEA4gCfQOdg
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> =KWrT
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:24:50 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu>
> Subject: [FRIAM] reduction and emergence
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0706191718500.19068 at thufir>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi Nick and others on this thread,
>
> I have been reading this conversation for a while and debating whether to
> post anything.  If you will accept the caveat that I am not intending to
> address all meanings of the word emergence in all contexts, please feel
> free to read the attached if you have time to kill.
>
> I think there is still some clarity to be gained by understanding
> carefully the classes of emergent phenomena recognized in statistical
> mechanics, not because they are representative of everything, but because
> they contain enough variation to help us clarify certain aspects of the
> topic.
>
> The main assertion of the attached, which it may be too poorly written to
> make obvious, is that the science of emergence should be understood as an
> outgrowth of the science of compression, and this is what makes its
> essence distinct from the particular sciences of many processes to which
> the concept can be applied, and also distinct from the enterprise of
> reductionism (not opposite, but orthogonal).
>
> I'm sure lots of people will object to lots of things, but that's okay.

I

> don't have any authority, so everyone can use anything or nothing as he
> chooses.
>
> Eric
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 48, Issue 25
> *************************************

[Russell Standish]

Edmund Ronald and Moshe Sipper were proposing this back in '99:

@InProceedings{Ronald-etal99,
  author = {Edmund M. A. Ronald and Moshe Sipper and Mathieu S. Capcarr\`ere},
  title = {Testing for Emergence in Artificial Life},
  crossref = {Floreano-etal99},
  pages = {13--20}
}

I don't think it is a true distinguishing characteristic, as an
emergent property remains emergent, even when it is no longer
suprising. But, as Ronald, et al point out, it can be a useful test.

Cheers

On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 12:35:56AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Glenn,
>
> You wrote:
>
> Was that conversation on this list?  I'd like to go back and read it.  A
> > Gmane search turned up nothing.
> >
>
> No, unfortuantely  The Conferesation was at Friday Meeting two weeks ago.
> We have also been working also on a possiblity you raise, that emergence
> might actually be a stage in the transformation of understanding in PEEPLE.
> A form of surprise:  As, "we say a phenomenon is emergent when what we know
> about the parts gives us no reason expect the form of the whole".  So
> emegent does refer to something in the world, but only something as seen
> from a particular angle by a person with a particular history.  
>
> am eagerly awaiting the reading of Eric Smith's post which I have not yet
> figured out how to extract from his message.  
>
> Nick
>
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:03:55 -0700
> > From: "Glen E. P. Ropella" <gepr at tempusdictum.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence as stop gap
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Message-ID: <46794FEB.9060506 at tempusdictum.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > any phenomena that we all agreed were cases of emergence.  I began to
> think
> > > we might fail in this way when one of us objected to the example of
> > > Hydrogen, Oxygen making water, which seemed to me about as emergent as
> > > something could get.  At that point, we would still not be skunked,
> because
> >
> > Was that conversation on this list?  I'd like to go back and read it.  A
> > Gmane search turned up nothing.
> >
> > It's odd that one would think of water as emerging from hydrogen and
> > oxygen.  A question for those who believe that is:  "Then does that make
> > all molecules emergent?"  There are plenty of complicated processes that
> > go into the construction of any molecule, many of those are more
> > complicated than water.
> >
> > I suspect the question above will seem to miss the point with many
> > Emergentists (Emergentites?  Emergencies? ... hmmm).  The point being
> > that emergence and perception are intertwined.  Water is perceived in a
> > very different way than masses of hydrogen or oxygen are perceived by
> > humans.  Many people who try to categorize "emergence" will attribute
> > this to some fundamental role of human expectations.  But, I suspect a
> > worm, ant, or tree (were we able to communicate with them) would also
> > grok the difference between water and hydrogen, even without our
> > neocortex.  This leads many others who like to categorize "emergence" to
> > talk of physical states of matter.  Water, in massive aggregation, acts
> > one way.  Water, in isolated molecules, acts another.  Hence "emergence"
> > is defined in terms of some sort of composition operator (e.g. summation).
> >
> > In the end, it all boils down to whether or not a thing ("water" can be
> > a thing) acts or is acted upon as a unit, distinct from the actions (or
> > reactions) of the things around it or its constituents (water
> > molecules).  Likewise, the water molecule acts different from the other
> > molecules around it and from its constituents.  So, when considering
> > water, there are at least two levels of emergence.
> >
> > But, so what?  Taken this way _everything_ is emergent.  I even heard a
> > guy named Terry Bristol claim that the universe is a kind of emergent
> > cycle where the emergent things at the bottom emerge from the emergent
> > things at the top in a kind of ourboros.  And that makes the word
> > "emergent" completely useless.
> >
> > - --
> > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
> > Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
> > temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFGeU/rZeB+vOTnLkoRAhNTAKCcqrSzOEzUiqcE3gaukqcw6HEA4gCfQOdg
> > off7M1XNCmRaWnxMOBtnZuE=
> > =KWrT
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:24:50 -0600 (MDT)
> > From: Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] reduction and emergence
> > To: friam at redfish.com
> > Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0706191718500.19068 at thufir>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Hi Nick and others on this thread,
> >
> > I have been reading this conversation for a while and debating whether to
> > post anything.  If you will accept the caveat that I am not intending to
> > address all meanings of the word emergence in all contexts, please feel
> > free to read the attached if you have time to kill.
> >
> > I think there is still some clarity to be gained by understanding
> > carefully the classes of emergent phenomena recognized in statistical
> > mechanics, not because they are representative of everything, but because
> > they contain enough variation to help us clarify certain aspects of the
> > topic.
> >
> > The main assertion of the attached, which it may be too poorly written to
> > make obvious, is that the science of emergence should be understood as an
> > outgrowth of the science of compression, and this is what makes its
> > essence distinct from the particular sciences of many processes to which
> > the concept can be applied, and also distinct from the enterprise of
> > reductionism (not opposite, but orthogonal).
> >
> > I'm sure lots of people will object to lots of things, but that's okay.
> I
> > don't have any authority, so everyone can use anything or nothing as he
> > chooses.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> > Name: reduction_emergence_MS.pdf
> > Type: application/pdf
> > Size: 164950 bytes
> > Desc:
> > Url :
> http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070619/85bc92fd
> /attachment.pdf
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Friam mailing list
> > Friam at redfish.com
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >
> >
> > End of Friam Digest, Vol 48, Issue 25
> > *************************************
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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--

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