Well, If you read a textbook the physics text that we did a bit this year you find out that system is defined as anything you happen to be looking at. So any bunch of stuff would be a system. But any bunch of stuff does not display emergent properties. So on that account you would be wrong.
But I HATE that use of the term system. I would much prefer that we reserve the word system for an organization of some sort where the properties of the parts are interdependent. In which case, every system has emergent properties by definition and I absolutely agree with you. I am not on my own computer here, so wont say more now and may wish that I had said less. All the best, Nick -----Original Message----- >From: "glen e. p. ropella" <g...@agent-based-modeling.com> >Sent: Jul 7, 2009 5:11 PM >To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> >Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and explanation > >Thus spake Nick Thompson circa 09-07-07 01:28 PM: >> My present candidate is Wimsatt's view which is to say that an entity >> has emergent properties if it has properties that depend upon the >> organization of its parts, rather than solely on the nature of the >> parts themselves. So a triangular frame has emergent properties not >> shared, for instance, with a parallelogram frame (other than having >> three members).. > >But, as Yudkowsky said in that post that Jochen forwarded, isn't this >true of _everything_? Can you name any system where _every_ property of >the system is based solely on the nature of its components and not on >its organization? > >More generally, is any property _not_ an emergent property? > >Sure, there may be _types_ of organization, as in the case of a triangle >vs. a parallelogram; but if that's the case, why not just talk about >types of organization instead of using the magical term "emergence"? > >-- >glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > >============================================================ >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 PS --Please if using the address nickthomp...@earthlink.net to reply, cc your message to nthomp...@clarku.edu. Thanks. ============================================================ 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
