Re: A question for the emergentists among you

Posted by Russell Standish on Oct 11, 2009; 5:01am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-question-for-the-emergentists-among-you-tp3799888p3802314.html

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 08:21:08PM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote:

> Wow, I post a question, go on a 6-hour hike and this is what I come back
> to...
>
> I still don't feel that I've got a straight answer to my question, other
> than Doug's (which I suspect is the most accurate) and Russ's (which I
> really hope isn't true). So let me try again: once I've established that a
> phenomenon is emergent by using a yet-to-be developed metric (Owen's
> formalism) or philosophic enquiry (Nick's & other's approach) - then what?
>
> In fact, let's not limit ourselves to the present situation (because I
> suspect that the current answer is simply "Nothing. Identifying emergence is
> an end in it's own right"). What would you *like* to be able to do once
> you'd attached the "emergent" label to a phenomenon? What's your best case,
> your grand vision? Imagine the best of all possible worlds and tell me: what
> would you want to be able to do once that "emergent" label gets attached?
>
> -- Robert

My very short answer is "compute the (informational) complexity of the
emergent thing". That's what I want to do.


--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 [hidden email]
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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