Posted by
Russ Abbott on
Sep 06, 2009; 9:56pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/emergence-tp3586728p3594383.html
Really Owen, I'm surprised.
Quoting Wikipedia as an authoritative source seems risky. And quoting Wikipedia quoting work from 1875 as authoritative on a subject like this seems even riskier. All that notwithstanding, the very next paragraph says
Professor
Jeffrey Goldstein in the School of Business at
Adelphi University provides a current definition of emergence in the journal,
Emergence (
Goldstein 1999).
For Goldstein, emergence can be defined as: "the arising of novel and
coherent structures, patterns and properties during the process of
self-organization in complex systems" (
Corning 2002).
So if you believe that not only are properties emergent, so are structures and patterns.
Certainly you can define a word any way you want. And one can then have dueling authorities with their dueling definitions. The papers in Bedau and Humphreys will have lots of definitions. Is the one that appears first in a Wikipedia article to be taken as authoritative?
Besides all that, this ignores the question I asked Nick, namely what is your theory of entities? What is an entity? How do they arise? What is it that a property is a property of? What does it even mean for something to be a property of something? Can you have properties without having entities?
-- Russ
On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Owen Densmore
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Wikipedia appears to agree with you, Nick:
"Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference." (
Lewes 1875, p. 412)(
Blitz 1992)
On Sep 6, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Try this: a property of an entity is emergent when it depends on the arrangment or the order of presentation of the parts of the entity. (It's properties that are emergent, not entities ... some properties of a pile of sand are emergent, some aggregate.) Here, I believe, I am channeling Wimsatt.
The beauty of reading a collection such as Bedau and The Other Guy is that you experience the whip-lash of moving from point of view to point of view. Good exercise for the neck.
By the way, Russ (was it?) was a ...leetle... unfair to Bedau. I dont think Bedau thinks it's a mystery; i think he thinks others have thought it a mystery. But it's been a few months since I read it.
Implementation: Consider the expression, "there is more than one way to skin a cat". Equivalent to: "there are several programs you can use to implement a cat skinning."
Consciousness: the big source of confusion in emergence discussions is the attempt to attach emergence to such perennial mysteries as consciousness. (Actually, I dont think consciousness is a mystery, but let that go.) The strength of a triangle is an emergent property of the arrangment of its legs and their attachments. There are lots of ways bang together boards and still have a weak construction, which I learned when I put together a grape arbor with no diagonal members. Worked fine until the grapes grew on it. Emergent properties are everywhere in the simplest of constructions. We dont need to talk about soul, or consciouness, or spirit to have a useful conversation about emergence.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 9/6/2009 10:32:59 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence
Consciousness / self-awareness?
Is this thus acceptable as an emergent phenomenon?
If so, how does this permit, or not, the definition of 'the self' as a unique identity?
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.
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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