Re: emergence

Posted by Russ Abbott on Sep 05, 2009; 8:54pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/emergence-tp3586728p3587973.html

Once upon a time, a long time ago, it seemed that there was something important about writing software in ways that separated levels of abstraction. But what that really meant and understanding how to do it seemed like something one learned only by experience -- and perhaps not even then.

Most people on this list are probably too young to remember those days. But there was a time when the concept of level of abstraction didn't exist or was at best something that one thought in a relatively informal way when evaluating how well some software was designed.

The same is true of "coupling" and "cohesion." These terms were never well defined -- and still aren't. They were (are) at best somewhat vague pointers to some sense of what well designed software should look like.  By the way, I would now say that loose coupling means that components are loosely coupled when the interact through specified interfaces only. But before the days of APIs and formal (or at least rigorous) specifications that were understood to be Independent of the implementation, one couldn't even say that very well.

We now understand what levels of abstraction means, and we have tools that help us build libraries and applications in terms of them. That doesn't mean that people should stop writing software.

The same is true of emergence. Knowing the mechanisms that bring it about doesn't mean that one should stop exploring the use of those mechanisms or the things one can build using them.

-- Russ

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm curious, Jochen: what do you mean by "solving the problem of" emergence?  Understanding it?  Will never happen -- everybody has their own 'correct' working definition of "emergence".  Define it?  Ditto. Recognizing it?  Ditto.

On the other hand, though, the image of a bunch of unemployed complexity scientists is oddly compelling...

--Doug

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Even if you have solved the problem of emergence
(was there any?) and all problems related to it,
are you sure that people want it to be solved?
90% of papers on complexity and social simulation
explicitly refer to emergence, i.e. emergent
processes, properties, dynamics, and patterns.
If you have indeed solved everything related to
emergence, everyone else working in complexity
science would become jobless immediately..

By the way did you notice that Libya's president
Gaddafi proposed the UN to abolish and dismantle
Switzerland? Somehow you have got to like this
eccentric behavior.. http://is.gd/2VI3H

-J.

----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott
To: [hidden email] ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence

Do you mean Bedau and Humphreys?  Also, I hope you read my paper, "The reductionist blind spot." As I said I've solved the problem of emergence. It's no longer the mystery Bedau and Humphreys make it out to be. Consequently the papers in their book are fairly obsolete.  Of course you will make up your own minds about that. But at least give yourself the chance to reach that conclusion.

-- Russ

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