Russ,
I agree with
I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity
from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena.
(That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of
emergence.)
This is also, as we will see, the position of William Wimsatt, I think.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 9/14/2009 10:19:10 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
Owen,
Here's how I would start.
I'm not scientist enough to know what 'configuration physics' or 'configuration
chemistry' means. My guess is that it means something like a structured
collection of matter where the structure itself is important. One of my friends
likes to talk about that sort of thing as global constraints. I think that's a
fine way of expressing it, when one understands global as referring to the
entity being structured and not the world at large.
I would nominate that concept--i.e., the ability to create a structured entity
from unstructured components--as the commonality among "emergent" phenomena.
(That's why I like the notion of level of abstraction as representative of
emergence.)
That raises a few questions.
What are the possible "binding forces" that can be used to create structure?
(My answer is that there are two categories of binding forces: static and
dynamic. The static ones are the forces of physics. They produce emergent
phenomena like chemistry as Roger said. The dynamic ones are much more open and
depend on the entities being organized. They produce emergent phenomena like
biological and social entities.)
How do those binding forces work? (My answer is that the static ones work
according to the laws of physics. For the dynamic ones it is much more
difficult to find a useful generalization since again it depends on the
entities being structured.)
Where does the energy come from that powers those forces. (My answer is that
for static forces, the energy is standard physics. Static entities exist at
equilibrium in energy wells. For dynamic entities the energy is continually
imported from outside. That's why they are "far from equilibrium." They must
import energy to keep themselves together.)
Finally, what holds levels of abstraction together within software? (My answer
is that software is subsidized. It runs without having to worry about the
energy it uses. Consequently software confuses us because it hides the energy
issue. One can build anything one can think of in software using the mechanisms
for construction built into (and on top of) the programming language one is
using.)
-- Russ
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote:
[This is an email I sent to the reading group. It's title was:
Emergence, Chaos Envy, and Formalization of Complexity
I think that, rather than worrying about the existing concepts of emergence, we
would be far better off looking at the history of Chaos and how they achieved
amazing results in a short time, and how we could similarly attempt
formalization of complexity. One idea is to simply look at the "edge of chaos"
idea in more detail, thus placing complexity as a field within chaos.]
Nick has started a seminar on Emergence based on the book of that name by Bedau
and Humphreys. This got me to thinking about the core problem of Complexity:
its lack of a core definition, along with lack of any success in formalizing it.
Chaos found itself in a similar position: the Lorenz equations for very simple
weather modeling had quirks which were difficult to grasp. Years passed with
many arguing that Lorenz was a dummy: he didn't understand error calculations,
nor did he understand the limitations of computation.
Many folks sided with Lorenz, siting similar phenomena such as turbulent flow,
the logistics map, and the three body problem. All had one thing in common:
divergence. I.e. two points near each other would find themselves at a near
random distance from each other after short periods of time.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
Complexity similarly arose from observations such as sand-pile formation,
flocking, ant foraging, and so on. Their commonality, however, was not
divergence but convergence, not chaos but order. Typically this is coined
"emergence".
I would like to propose an attempt to do what Poincare, Feigenbaum, Layapunov
and others have done for Chaos, but for Complexity.
Nick has hit the nail on the head, I think, in choosing Emergence as the core
similarity across the spectrum of phenomena we call "complex".
The success of Chaos was to find a few, very constrained areas of divergence
and formalize them into a mathematical framework. Initial success brought the
Rosetta stone: the Lyapunov exponent: a scalar metric for identifying chaotic
systems.
It seems to me that a goal of understanding emergence is to formalize it,
hoping for the same result Chaos had. I'd be fine limiting our scope to ABM,
simply because it has a hope of being bounded .. thus simple enough for success.
You see why I included Chaos Envy?
-- Owen
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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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
