The reductionist blind spot

[Russ Abbott]

Hi all,

For your information, my paper "The reductionist blind spot" has just been published in Wiley's online "Early View". It will appear in a forthcoming issue of Complexity. It's DOI is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cplx.20274, with URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121685801/abstract. Unfortunately, access requires a subscription or individual payment. A preprint is available here.

By the way, I'm sending this message to two groups of people. The "Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" (FRIAM) is a mailing list of people interested in complexity issues. It is sponsored by RedfishGroup in Santa Fe. The specific individuals listed on this email are involved in organizing a series of workshops on causality in complex systems. The principle moving force is Anne-Marie Grisogono of DSTO Australia.  I thought that these two groups would be interested in getting to know each other. (And now I'm wondering what, if anything, will happen as a result of creating this mixture. Is it combustable?)

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/



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[Jochen Fromm-4]

Interesting article. In principle, all the different sciences
are just one science at a different level of abstraction.
Would you agree with the following statements:
( weak and strong terms in the sense of
http://www.cas-group.net/wiki/Emergence )

A case of weak emergence requires a higher level
of abstraction for the patterns of the system:
it requires "a new branch of science". It is not
possible to define a code, protocol or interface which
connect both levels of abstraction and allow the implementation
of high-level patterns without knowing the low-level system.

A case of strong emergence (or supervenience)
requires a higher level of abstraction for the system
itself, it requires "a new kind of science".
It is possible to define a code, protocol or interface
which connect both systems and allow the implementation
of high-level patterns without knowing the low-level system.

In the first case the relationship between both levels
is a mutual interaction: high-level and low-level
patterns influence each other. The low-level realizes
the high-level, and the high-level is composed of the
low-level.

In the second case the relationship between both levels
is characterized by supervenience and implementation:
the low-level implements the high-level, and
the high-level supervenes on the low-level.

-J.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Russell Standish]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 09:52:45PM +0100, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Interesting article. In principle, all the different sciences
> are just one science at a different level of abstraction.
> Would you agree with the following statements:
> ( weak and strong terms in the sense of
> http://www.cas-group.net/wiki/Emergence )
>
> A case of strong emergence (or supervenience)

Supervenience is not equivalent to strong emergence. It is more akin
to nominal emergence, which is a more general notion than even weak emergence.

I think the above wiki article defines terms in a very unusual, and
probably not helpful way.

Cheers
--

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UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 [hidden email]
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[Ted Carmichael]

Hi, Jochen.

I don't think I would agree with that statement, but I may not be understanding your terms.

I assume not "knowing" the low level system means not having a clear definition.  Can you have some sort of fitness function on the high level system, so that the low level definition emerges to produce the high-level patterns?  Is this what nature does ... creating an environment with no "program" on the low level system, allowing whatever patterns can best take advantage of it?

Just my thoughts.  Cheers,

Ted

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Interesting article. In principle, all the different sciences
are just one science at a different level of abstraction.
Would you agree with the following statements:
( weak and strong terms in the sense of http://www.cas-group.net/wiki/Emergence )

A case of weak emergence requires a higher level of abstraction for the patterns of the system:
it requires "a new branch of science". It is not possible to define a code, protocol or interface which
connect both levels of abstraction and allow the implementation
of high-level patterns without knowing the low-level system.

A case of strong emergence (or supervenience)
requires a higher level of abstraction for the system itself, it requires "a new kind of science". It is possible to define a code, protocol or interface which connect both systems and allow the implementation
of high-level patterns without knowing the low-level system.

In the first case the relationship between both levels
is a mutual interaction: high-level and low-level patterns influence each other. The low-level realizes the high-level, and the high-level is composed of the low-level.

In the second case the relationship between both levels
is characterized by supervenience and implementation: the low-level implements the high-level, and the high-level supervenes on the low-level.

-J.

============================================================
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-4]

Hi,

Russell Standish was right, the definitions in the wiki contradict the
definitions of Mark A. Bedau. They are more like Chalmers, and less like
Bedau. Obviously I have not read Bedau carefully enough. I know the paper
from Alex Ryan, but I haven't read it carefully enough, either.. I found it
a bit boring. I added you as an "Author" to the blog (I will send the login
and password separately). Anyone else from the FRIAM list is of course
invited, too. The CAS-Group wiki has a different login, it is possible to
register yourself.

Best regards,
Jochen

----- Original Message -----
From: Ted Carmichael
To: Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2009 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The reductionist blind spot

Hey, Jochen.

Yeah, I struggle with these definitions myself.  I tend to think best with
examples and anecdotes, as opposed to abstractions.  That is, I usually
understand an abstraction in terms of an example that I use to conceptualize
the idea.  If I can't come up with a good example, that usually means I
don't understand the concept.

So the idea of strong emergence I don't worry about too much.  I agree with
you when you say, "The point here is that it is not possible to incorporate
the behavior of biological organisms (which are based on genes and proteins)
somehow into the laws of atomic physics," so I simply don't try to connect
the two.  I only work on emergent properties that I can try to understand.
And, if I'm reading you (and others) correctly, strong emergence is simply
too great a leap to be deducible.

Well, you may have already read it, but I thought you'd like an article I
came across recently.  Maybe it can help you come up with an alternative to
"levels of abstraction."

Yes, I would be glad to take part in the CAS-Group. [..] How would you like
me to participate?

Cheers,


Ted


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Russ Abbott]

In Bedau's framework, strong emergence basically means something like "a miracle happened." Vitalism is a good example of strong emergence. Vitalism is the position that life has some additional (vital) property that cannot be derived from nor understood in terms of the underlying phyics and chemistry. (See Google define:vitalism.)

Nominal emergence is the idea that the emergent properties (at the macro level) are more or less directly derivable from the underlying properties (at ethe micro level). A trivial example is that the mass of a collection of things is the sum of the masses of the components. (For this to be true, one must assume that the components have not interacted in any way that would modify their aggregate mass. That turns out to be a non-trivial assumption. But the basic idea seems fairly clear.)

Weak emergence is Bedau's way of characterizing what we commonly refer to as emergence, namely properties that appear at the macro level that aren't obvious from an examination of the micro level. That's not saying very much, but I don't think that the idea of weak emergence adds much to the discussion. One somewhat more concrete subcase of weak emergence consists of properties that can be determined only by a computation. An example is whether a Turing Machine will halt. One can't always just "look at" the Turing Machine and decide. One must run it. If it halts, one has the answer. Until then, one doesn't have the answer -- which means that one may never have the answer for any particular machine.

This is all from what by now is a somewhat dated paper. I like my version of emergence better, which in in less than 10 words is that it is the properties at a level of abstraction.

-- Russ

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 5:36 AM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

Russell Standish was right, the definitions in the wiki contradict the
definitions of Mark A. Bedau. They are more like Chalmers, and less like
Bedau. Obviously I have not read Bedau carefully enough. I know the paper
from Alex Ryan, but I haven't read it carefully enough, either.. I found it
a bit boring. I added you as an "Author" to the blog (I will send the login
and password separately). Anyone else from the FRIAM list is of course
invited, too. The CAS-Group wiki has a different login, it is possible to
register yourself.

Best regards,
Jochen

----- Original Message ----- From: Ted Carmichael
To: Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2009 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The reductionist blind spot

Hey, Jochen.

Yeah, I struggle with these definitions myself.  I tend to think best with
examples and anecdotes, as opposed to abstractions.  That is, I usually
understand an abstraction in terms of an example that I use to conceptualize
the idea.  If I can't come up with a good example, that usually means I
don't understand the concept.

So the idea of strong emergence I don't worry about too much.  I agree with
you when you say, "The point here is that it is not possible to incorporate
the behavior of biological organisms (which are based on genes and proteins)
somehow into the laws of atomic physics," so I simply don't try to connect
the two.  I only work on emergent properties that I can try to understand.
And, if I'm reading you (and others) correctly, strong emergence is simply
too great a leap to be deducible.

Well, you may have already read it, but I thought you'd like an article I
came across recently.  Maybe it can help you come up with an alternative to
"levels of abstraction."

Yes, I would be glad to take part in the CAS-Group. [..] How would you like
me to participate?

Cheers,


Ted


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

[Russell Standish]

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 02:36:21PM +0100, Jochen Fromm wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Russell Standish was right, the definitions in the wiki contradict the
> definitions of Mark A. Bedau. They are more like Chalmers, and less like
> Bedau. Obviously I have not read Bedau carefully enough. I know the paper
> from Alex Ryan, but I haven't read it carefully enough, either.. I found it
> a bit boring. I added you as an "Author" to the blog (I will send the login
> and password separately). Anyone else from the FRIAM list is of course
> invited, too. The CAS-Group wiki has a different login, it is possible to
> register yourself.
>
> Best regards,
> Jochen
>

I just flicked through the Chalmers paper that you sent me
(http://consc.net/papers/granada.html), and I think that Chalmers'
position in that paper is closer to Bedau's that you give
credit. Which is not surprising, given that Chalmers credits Bedau
with the ideas.

Chalmers uses different words, to be sure, and this can create
misunderstandings, but I think that Chalmers' "reducible in principle"
means something like supervenience - there is no extra physical law at
the higher (or what I call semantic level).

Note that contra  Bedau, I think there is a role for
strong emergence, as defined by Bedau. In a multiverse with an
operating anthropic principle (we can only observe those worlds
compatibel with our existence), the anthropic principle which
constrains the observable physics is an extra layer of causality not
reducible to the underlying micro world. No magic.

Of course, for some, a multiverse is magic enough, and many people are
highly suspicious of the anthropic principle (the WAP and SAP become
equivalent in the Multiverse). I had lunch with Chalmers one day, and
gave him a copy of my book. He was rather bemused by the whole thing
actually - I suspect he'd be happy to consign the Multiverse to the
same "magical" bin.

PS - I just realised when I read on that Chalmers is arguing that
consciousness is an example of strong emergence. In fact he makes the
claim that it is _the only_ such example.  I won't really brook an
argument here - my opinion is that consciousness is wrapped up in the
definition of emergence _simpliciter_ (where does the separation of
syntactic and semantic layers come from, if not from conscious
observation), so naturally strong emergence will always be closely
tied to consciousness (the anthropic principle being just one such
quite obvious example).

Cheers
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 [hidden email]
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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