> So the insight you have brought to the world is
> that the best way to understand emergence is through
> the lens of implementation - emergent properties can
> be described as a high level abstraction which is
> implemented by low level elements. Right?
>
> It seems to me that you have just invented a new
> word for emergence: instead of saying a flock emerges
> from a number of birds you say the birds implement
> a flock, and instead of saying foraging trails
> emerge from an ant colony you say an ant colony
> implements a foraging trail.
>
> For engineers it is in fact useful to understand
> emergence as an implementation, because if they
> want to produce an emergent property, they must
> implement it somehow. Is this revolutionary?
> To implement a behavior for a group of agents
> means to implement a distributed alogithm. You
> know how difficult this is. The "implementation"
> insight is not very useful if we don't know how
> to implement a particular emergent property,
> or how to find the right distributed algorithm for
> the problem at hand.
>
> The interesting question is more how to implement
> emergence (how do we organize a system which
> organizes itself, the ESOA and ESOS problem).
> There are methods to do it, for example genetic
> algorithms or "Synthetic Microanalysis" (i.e.
> the scientifc method for the engineer which
> means rapid prototyping and agile development)
>
http://wiki.cas-group.net/index.php?title=ESOS>
> Another interesting question is why it is so
> hard to find "emergence" in computer science.
> Implementation means writing code, and code is
> the foundation of everything in software development.
> Therefore if you ask where emergence is used
> in computer science, you have to say "nowhere"
> - programmers hate unintended consequences
> and try to avoid them - and "everywhere" -
> it is just code which we use all the time.
>
> -J.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott
> To:
[hidden email] ; The Friday Morning Applied
> Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence
>
> I don't want to leave the impression that I think that emergence is
> a difficult concept to understand and that I but hardly anyone else
> understands it. Emergence is what happens when components of the
> "emergent entity" act in such a way as to bring about the existence
> and persistence of that entity.
>
> When "boids" follow their local flying rules, they create
> (implement) a flock. It's not mysterious. We know how it works.
>
> That's all emergence is: coordinated or consistent actions among a
> number of elements that result in the formation and persistence of
> some aggregate entity or phenomenon. The "coordination" doesn't have
> to be top-down. In flocking, for example, there is coordination. The
> flying rules depend on the boids seeing neighboring boids. One can
> even say that there is some overall coordination: namely that all
> the boids follow those same rules. Emergence is the term we have
> come to use for that process/effect.
>
> In the introduction to Bedau and Humphreys they speak of emergence
> as some mysterious, perhaps even incoherent phenomenon. It's not. It
> happens all the time all around us. Our bodies are the emergent
> result of the actinos of our cells. A country is the emergent result
> of the actinos of its citizens. This group is the emergent result of
> the actions of its participants.
>
> It's worth pointing out that in biological and social emergent
> entities, the comonents may come and go while the entity persists.
> What emerges is a pattern of activities, not a physical thing.
> That's one of the reasons people get confused. (And that's why
> subvenience is not particularly useful in these cases.)
>
> But if you just think about emergence as a persistent pattern of
> activities, that pretty much takes care of it. It's the fact that
> the pattern persists that matters, not the elements that are acting
> to produce the pattern.
>
> -- Russ
>
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