mystery and emergence
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Nick and all --
I would have to say that many mysterious
phenomena are not emergent.
It takes one missing piece of information in an otherwise
linear deductive process to create "a mystery." The cat jumps into the
window and knocks over a kachina that strands there, while I am away. At
least for a while, it is a mystery how that happened. It is even more
likely to be mysterious if the cat's behavior is atypical, or if I don't see a
path for it to get from the floor to the window.
Secondly, there are mysteries that I doubt we will ever be
able to reduce, with certainty, either to a linear explanation
or to one involving emergence. Esamples "What preceded the Big
Bang?" or a religious version thereof; "What is outside the Universe
and how can it have a boundary?"; or "Where did quarks get the
ruleset under which it can be shown that they operate?" There
are a small number of baseline existential questions in which mystery is both
inherent and irreducible. I know that assertion will get some of the true
Rationalists going, and I am not looking for a big fight. Such questions
are very few in number, but I believe there are a half-dozen or so that we
are obliged to 'fudge' (that is, give operational definitions to them) in order
to proceed with rational analysis of the remaining 99.99% of
inquiry.
Thus, from either a simple or sublime perspective,
there can be mystery without emergence.
Last but perhaps not least -- and a reason for not making
mystery an essential part of a definition of emergence -- mystery is an
experiential quality more than an "objective" phenomenon. We can
retain the sense of wonder and of mystery even after we have analytically
understood how some phenomenon happens. Mystery is a willingness to remain
astonished, and as such is not discrete enough to define other
terms.
My two-cents worth -- which are bound to mystify some
folks!
Kim Sorvig
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Nice explanation. This summer I was in Australia. While there we visited the Sydney aquarium and the land animal "zoo" next door. I found myself amazed at the enormous variety of kinds of life and the niches that they occupy. Even though I understand evolution and am firmly convinced that it's the right way to look at the world, I was still filled with wonder at what I saw. Perhaps mystery isn't the right word, but wonder and amazement come close.
Even quarks as we know them embody an inherent mystery -- besides how do they come to function the way they do. Our current theory of quarks includes probabilities and randomness. It seems to me that there is a mystery there all by itself. Attaching words like probability and random to that sort of behavior is less an explanationthen an acknowledgment that there is no explanation -- which is essentially what a mystery is. And that is built right into the theory. It's not even a meta-question like how come quarks (or strings, or whatever) operate according to whatever theory/laws describe how they operate. -- Russ On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Kim Sorvig <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Thanks Russ -
I'd agree that probability and "randomness" are a
couple of the questions I called baseline existential ones, as well as being
"fudges", particularly the over-used and much-abused term "random."
Despite having rather specific meanings to mathematicians and logicians, random
is still an inherently myterious and in my view suspect term. In practice
if not by intent, anything that 'Western' science can't describe succinctly
and/or predict is called random, and is the rationalist's equivalent of the
Magnum Mysterium. Personally, I think that is essnetial and wonderful,
though I know it insults some rationalists to their core. As I see, it,
rationalism is no-wise diminished by admitting that there are certain questions
outside its scope, and that making an assumption yea or nay about a couple such
unanswerables is sine-qua-non for logical investigation of the world at
large.
Emergence iself, it seems to me, is such a
mystery. We see the emergent cohesion of a bunch of dots on a screen,and
we know the underlying ruleset -- but we don't actually have an explanation for
what constitutes 'cohesion' either visually or functionally. It's a
mystery!
Kim S
============================================================ 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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In reply to this post by Kim Sorvig
Kim,
I stand corrected on the first and agree on the second.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of
Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" and the many wonderful riffs on that including: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" - Niven & then Pratchett "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law or my mostest favorites: "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo," - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) So perhaps: "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from mystery". or "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." - Steve ============================================================ 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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Could we get all these on a t-shirt and then sell it as a fundraiser?
or just distribute them amongst ourselves...? Although I believe Clarke said 'technology' not 'science'. On Sep 7, 2009, at 8:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of > Clarke's third law: > > "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" > > and the many wonderful riffs on that including: > > "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from > technology" > - Niven & then Pratchett > > "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently > advanced." > - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law > > or my mostest favorites: > > "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" > - Agatha Heterodyne > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a > yo-yo," > - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) > > > So perhaps: > > "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from > mystery". > or > "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." > > > > - Steve > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 |
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Victoria Hughes wrote:
> Could we get all these on a t-shirt and then sell it as a fundraiser? > or just distribute them amongst ourselves...? > > Although I believe Clarke said 'technology' not 'science'. I believe you are correct... I think my (mis)quote is a common misquote, however. For the T-shirt, I prefer Gehm's Corrolary... if one were to have to pick a single quote. > > > > On Sep 7, 2009, at 8:24 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > >> All this talk of emergence and mystery reminds me wonderfully of >> Clarke's third law: >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic" >> >> and the many wonderful riffs on that including: >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" >> - Niven & then Pratchett >> >> "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." >> - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Law >> >> or my mostest favorites: >> >> "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" >> - Agatha Heterodyne >> >> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a >> yo-yo," >> - Neal Stephenson (in the voice of Enoch Root) >> >> >> So perhaps: >> >> "Any sufficiently subtle emergence is indistinguishable from mystery". >> or >> "Any sufficiently analyzed emergence is indistinguishable from ..." >> >> >> >> - Steve >> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 ============================================================ 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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