Re: A question for the emergentists among you

Posted by Nick Thompson on Oct 10, 2009; 5:08pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-question-for-the-emergentists-among-you-tp3799888p3800499.html

Robert:

 

House guests, but let me take a quick whack at this.  Before the recent "epigenic" revolution we focussed only on which genes we had, not on the arrangement of timing of events during development.  It's example, I think, of the heurism of the emergentist viewpoint. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Sent: 10/10/2009 8:00:42 AM

Subject: [FRIAM] A question for the emergentists among you

What's the point of determining whether a phenomenon is emergent or not? What useful stuff can I actually do with that knowledge?

In other areas of my life, classification can have actionable consequences. For example, I can use the sophisticated pattern-matching algorithms and heuristics embedded in my brain to work out that the three animals wandering through my house can be categorized as "cats" and not "dogs". And that is useful, because it tells me that I should buy cat food and not dog food when I go to PetCo.

So what is an equivalent example with emergence? Once I've attached the "emergent" label to a phenomenon, then what?

-- Robert

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