Posted by
Nick Thompson on
Oct 12, 2009; 10:50pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-question-for-the-emergentists-among-you-tp3799888p3811274.html
Glen Wrote:
====> Note that the above is about emergent phenomena, not emergent
properties. I still think the concept of an emergent property is either
useless, self-contradictory, or just confused.<====
Nick replies
===> Funny. I have this exactly the opposite way. I think I know what an
emergent property is, but I cannot imagine any more what I ever meant when
I spoke of an emergent phenomenon. Is there a chance we come up with a
common undestanding?
To me, a property is emergent when it depends on the arrangement of the
parts that make up the whole. The problem with calling the whole thing "the
emergent" or "an emergent phenomenon" from my point of view is that some
the properties of an object can be emergent while others are not. So, an
object of conversation can be emergent in some of its particulars and not
in others.
One escape from this dilemma, proposed by several of our authors, is to
simply declare that any "thing" with emergent properties is an emergent.
But this solution makes "properties" primary, and so flies in the face of
what you said.
It would be nice to get squared away on this. <=====
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (
[hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella <
[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
[hidden email]>
> Date: 10/12/2009 9:57:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for the emergentists among you
>
> Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 10/11/2009 09:13 PM:
> > "Once I've
> > attached the 'emergent' label to a phenomenon, I now know that I CANNOT
apply
> > scientific methodologies to the problem that treat the phenomenon as
> > if:
>
> Excellent modification. I do have a (speculative) positive answer,
> though. I've just been waiting to see if anyone else put it forward.
>
> My answer to Robert's question is: Once I trust that a phenomenon is
> emergent, I can be more confident in the assumption that the phenomenon
> can be used as a mechanism in a layer of abstraction that generates
> coarser phenomena.
>
> If a phenomenon is NOT emergent, then, in order to build an adequate
> description of the whole system, I must include the details of the
> mechanism that generated the phenomenon. I.e. any abstraction of those
> details will be inadequate or impoverished... the abstraction will be
> too easily punctured. If, however, a phenomenon is emergent, then I'm
> under less pressure to delineate each detail of its mechanism and can
> get away with encapsulating the phenomenon in a coarser abstraction.
>
> The _use_ to which such a categorization would be put is the method of
> replacement in, for example, modeling and simulation. If we need a more
> "sciency" method, then we can talk about compressibility. I might be
> able to claim that systems exhibiting emergent phenomena are _more_
> compressible than those without them.
>
>
> Note that the above is about emergent phenomena, not emergent
> properties. I still think the concept of an emergent property is either
> useless, self-contradictory, or just confused.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com>
>
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