Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[thompnickson2]

Eric –

 

Sorry. good discussion. But I’m too busy being hysterical about the election 
right now.  Please rekindle discussion when Penny has scraped me down off the 
walls. 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 11:57 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

I mean... that Aristotle's 4 "causes" are all counted as "causes" is clearly 
arbitrary right?!? (At this point in the conversation.) The insight Aristotle 
is bringing to the table is that when someone points at something and asks 
"Why?", we can answer that in multiple sensible ways. That English uses the 
same word for what are (at least) 4 conceptually distinct things, is a 
different issue altogether. If we agree there are 4 distinguishable concepts 
there, we can call them "Cause1", "Cause2" or "Material Cause", "Efficient 
Cause", etc., or we could call them by much more distinct names if we wanted to.

 

Translating into other languages creates huge headaches in exactly these 
situations. How would you talk about the "4 causes" if you have a language in 
which there are four distinct words, each of which is clearly referring to a 
different kind of thing, and there was no omnibus term that lumped them 
together? Or what if there was a language that an omnibus word, but it was even 
wider, and included 6 distinct concepts? 

 

Even in English, because the language is so bloody flexible, it would be 
relatively trivial to remove the word "cause" entirely and just ask things like:

*   "What is it made of?" (requesting a "material cause" answer) 
*   "What will it be when it is done?" (requesting a "formal cause" answer) 
 
*   "What process made it that way?" (requesting an "efficient cause" 
answer)
*   "Why was it done?" (requesting a "final cause" answer)

And, of course, we could use Tinbergen's 4 "whys" as easily as Aristotles, or 
anyone else's suggested categories. 

 

Whenever we say more simply "What caused X?" we open ourselves up to being 
given an answer in any of those terms. The issue of whether constituent parts 
"cause" the whole is just such a confusion. The issue of whether some "higher" 
level of organization can "cause" things at a lower level is also such a 
confusion. That the U.S. was at war with Vietnam in 1974 was surely a cause of 
many things that happened in Vietnam during that year, by some reasonable 
meaning of the word cause. Once that's out of the way, the only question is 
whether that's the meaning of the word "cause" that we were interested in, and 
whether that meaning works for some specific happening of interest. 

 

Similarly: Do you remember at some point learning that "There are 8 types of 
love, affectionate love, romantic love, playful love, etc."?  What we probably 
should have been taught was something like "The ancient Greeks had distinct 
concepts, marked by unrelated words, for 8 things that we awkwardly try to lump 
under one word. Using just one word for all those things creates a lot of 
really awful confusions for English speakers. English is dumb, and we should 
create words to stop those confusions." Instead the messaging was more like 
"Oh, isn't it interesting that there are so many different kinds of love!" as 
if the basic category was somehow unchallengeable.

 

(I fully recognize that those who know Greek, or more intimately know Aristotle 
may find fault in my summary above, but I'm pretty confident the thrust of the 
overall argument stands)




 

 

On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 5:51 PM  wrote:

Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope he 
right, but I am not so sure.  

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also 
don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. 
The next day, seeing the note on the bo

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[Eric Charles]

I mean... that Aristotle's 4 "causes" are all counted as "causes" is
clearly arbitrary right?!? (At this point in the conversation.) The insight
Aristotle is bringing to the table is that when someone points at something
and asks "*Why?"*, we can answer that in multiple sensible ways. That
English uses the same word for what are (at least) 4 conceptually distinct
things, is a different issue altogether. If we agree there are 4
distinguishable concepts there, we can call them "Cause1", "Cause2" or
"Material *Cause*", "Efficient *Cause*", etc., or we *could *call them by
much more distinct names if we wanted to.

Translating into other languages creates huge headaches in exactly these
situations. How would you talk about the "4 causes" if you have a language
in which there are four distinct words, each of which is clearly
referring to a different kind of thing, and there was no omnibus term that
lumped them together? Or what if there was a language that an omnibus word,
but it was even wider, and included 6 distinct concepts?

Even in English, because the language is so bloody flexible, it would be
relatively trivial to remove the word "cause" entirely and just ask things
like:

   - "What is it made of?" (requesting a "material cause" answer)
   - "What will it be when it is done?" (requesting a "formal cause"
   answer)
   - "What process made it that way?" (requesting an "efficient cause"
   answer)
   - "Why was it done?" (requesting a "final cause" answer)

And, of course, we could use Tinbergen's 4 "whys" as easily as Aristotles,
or anyone else's suggested categories.

Whenever we say more simply "What caused X?" we open ourselves up to being
given an answer in any of those terms. The issue of whether
constituent parts "cause" the whole is just such a confusion. The issue of
whether some "higher" level of organization can "cause" things at a lower
level is also such a confusion. That the U.S. was at war with Vietnam in
1974 was surely a cause of many things that happened in Vietnam during that
year, by *some* reasonable meaning of the word cause. Once that's out of
the way, the only question is whether that's the meaning of the word
"cause" that we were interested in, and whether that meaning works for some
specific happening of interest.

Similarly: Do you remember at some point learning that "There are 8 types
of love, affectionate love, romantic love, playful love, etc."?  What we
probably should have been taught was something like "The ancient Greeks had
distinct concepts, marked by unrelated words, for 8 things that we
awkwardly try to lump under one word. Using just one word for all those
things creates a lot of really awful confusions for English speakers.
English is dumb, and we should create words to stop those confusions."
Instead the messaging was more like "Oh, isn't it interesting that there
are so many different *kinds of love*!" as if the basic category was
somehow unchallengeable.

(I fully recognize that those who know Greek, or more intimately know
Aristotle may find fault in my summary above, but I'm pretty confident the
thrust of the overall argument stands)



On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 5:51 PM  wrote:

> Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope
> he right, but I am not so sure.
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
> *Sent:* Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation
>
>
>
> Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I
> also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on
> a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a
> pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just
> normal causation.
>
>
>
> I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can
> cause the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of
> taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects
> that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in
> question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't
> dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in
> psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechan

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[thompnickson2]

Eric has this weird faith that we can separate words from ideas.  I hope he 
right, but I am not so sure.  

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 4:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

 

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I also 
don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on a board. 
The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a pill (is part of 
a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just normal causation. 

 

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause the 
behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of 
taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects that 
there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in question are 
constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't dualists who believe in 
disembodied intentions floating around in psychophysical parallelism with some 
mysterious causal mechanisms... we are some brand of behaviorist/materialist 
who understands intentions to be higher-order patterns of behavior in 
circumstances. 

 

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past 
breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something are 
recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at that point, we 
either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some weird 
argument over words, not ideas. 


 

 

 

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm mailto:j...@cas-group.net> > wrote:

It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. 
From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and 
ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?

 

In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words 
*directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to 
be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, 
but also by emotions and instincts.

 

If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are biological 
animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate! replicate!). 
In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes on us.

 

But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about 
mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one moment 
where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do and what to 
learn.

 

He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next day to 
do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers it the 
next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our future self. 
IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to causation.

 

Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the mind 
works. 

 

-J.

 

 

 Original message 

From: Eric Charles mailto:eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> > 

Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00) 

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> > 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation 

 

Come on man this shit isn't that hard

 

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level causes 
something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, it's because 
you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. "Levels" are 
always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit that from the 
start. 

 

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings of 
"causation".

 

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded that 
you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than at home. 
Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One "cause" (part of 
the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's categories) is that I was in 
the store. Because I was in the store, all the parts of me were in the store. 
Because all the parts of me were in the store, when something happened to one 
of those parts, it happened in the store. Is "All of me" a higher level of 
organization than "part of me"? If we buy that, then 
the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by I-was-in-the-store. 

 

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the en

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[Eric Charles]

Jochen, At a first pass I don't think I disagree with any of that. But I
also don't think it would count as 'downward causation'. I write a note on
a board. The next day, seeing the note on the board causes me to take a
pill (is part of a causal chain leading to the pill taking). That's just
normal causation.

I think the question is whether your "intention to take the pill" can cause
the behavior of writing-the-note-on-the-board and the behavior of
taking-the-pill-in-response-to-seeing-the-note. At that point Nick objects
that there is some odd category error there, because both behaviors in
question are constituent parts of the intention... because we aren't
dualists who believe in disembodied intentions floating around in
psychophysical parallelism with some mysterious causal mechanisms... we are
some brand of behaviorist/materialist who understands intentions to be
higher-order patterns of behavior in circumstances.

And that's all fine and good... EXCEPT... that there are several past
breakdowns of "types of causes" in which the constituent parts of something
are recognized as some particular sub-category of causation. And at
*that *point,
we either agree to be clearer about our terminology, or we are just in some
weird argument over words, not ideas.




On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:36 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it
> interesting. From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words
> I think and ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they
> do, how?
>
> In my opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words
> *directly*. At best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's
> "to be or not to be" monologue. We react to events. We are driven by
> intentions, but also by emotions and instincts.
>
> If we do something we must have the desire to do it. Since we are
> biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive (eat! mate!
> replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society imposes
> on us.
>
> But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn more about
> mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the one
> moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do
> and what to learn.
>
> He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds him the next
> day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he remembers
> it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with our
> future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to
> causation.
>
> Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how the
> mind works.
>
> -J.
>
>
> ---- Original message 
> From: Eric Charles 
> Date: 10/30/20 13:50 (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation
>
> Come on man this shit isn't that hard
>
> First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level
> causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it,
> it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue.
> "Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just
> admit that from the start.
>
> Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established
> meanings of "causation".
>
> Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded
> that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than
> at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One
> "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's
> categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the
> parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the
> store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the
> store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If
> we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by
> I-was-in-the-store.
>
> Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has
> Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S.
> downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.
>
>
>
> 
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward
>> causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language,
>> however boring that may sound.
>>
>> 

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[Jochen Fromm]

It is hard and at the same time it is not. This is what makes it interesting. 
From a psychological perspective the question is: do the words I think and 
ideas I have influence my own behavior directly, and if they do, how?In my 
opinion it is not possible to control oneself by ideas or words *directly*. At 
best they are confusing and prevent actions, like Hamlet's "to be or not to be" 
monologue. We react to events. We are driven by intentions, but also by 
emotions and instincts.If we do something we must have the desire to do it. 
Since we are biological animals we primarily follow the biological directive 
(eat! mate! replicate!). In addition to this rules we follow the laws society 
imposes on us.But a person can decide to do something, for example to learn 
more about mathematics. So he might enroll at some kind of college. Except the 
one moment where he decided to start studying others will tell him what to do 
and what to learn.He also can write down a note in his calendar which reminds 
him the next day to do something. Or he can speak to himself loudly so that he 
remembers it the next day. In both cases language allows us to interact with 
our future self. IMHO language in written or spoken form is the key to 
causation.Or would you disagree? As a psychologist you know better than me how 
the mind works. -J.
 Original message From: Eric Charles 
 Date: 10/30/20  13:50  (GMT+01:00) To: The 
Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  Subject: Re: 
[FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation Come on man this shit isn't that 
hardFirst, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher 
level causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it, 
it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue. 
"Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just admit 
that from the start. Second, you have to buy into the many and various 
well-established meanings of "causation".Let's say I go to the store and have a 
stroke. Let's say someone demanded that you explain what caused me to have a 
stroke in the store, rather than at home. Obviously you could answer that lots 
of different ways. One "cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using 
Aristotle's categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, 
all the parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the 
store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the store. 
Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If we buy 
that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by 
I-was-in-the-store. Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the 
entire U.S. has Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in 
the-entire-U.S. downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.On Thu, Oct 
29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:
My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward 
causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, 
however boring that may sound. Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum 
of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the 
interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.These 
interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm 
intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to 
the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual 
actions. So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. 
They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody 
ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which 
everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.-J. 
 Original message From: thompnicks...@gmail.com Date: 10/29/20  
20:26  (GMT+01:00) To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation All, 
Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, 
but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought 
emergence is.   My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by 
defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on 
the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of 
a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  
Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends 
on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the 
heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or 
ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[Eric Charles]

Come on man this shit isn't that hard

First, you buy into a system of levels. Then something at a higher level
causes something at a lower level. IF you really have a problem with it,
it's because you think the "levels" and bullshit. That's a different issue.
"Levels" are always at least somewhat arbitrary, and we should all just
admit that from the start.

Second, you have to buy into the many and various well-established meanings
of "causation".

Let's say I go to the store and have a stroke. Let's say someone demanded
that you explain what caused me to have a stroke in the store, rather than
at home. Obviously you could answer that lots of different ways. One
"cause" (part of the efficient cause, if we are using Aristotle's
categories) is that I was in the store. Because I was in the store, all the
parts of me were in the store. Because all the parts of me were in the
store, when something happened to one of those parts, it happened in the
store. Is "All of me" a higher level of organization than "part of me"? If
we buy that, then the-stroke-being-in-the-store was downward caused by
I-was-in-the-store.

Why does New Mexico have Trump as president? Because the entire U.S. has
Trump as president, and Trump-is-President becoming true in the-entire-U.S.
downward causes that to be the case in New Mexico.






On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward
> causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language,
> however boring that may sound.
>
> Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The
> difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the interaction
> between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.
>
> These interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules
> of swarm intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The
> laws lead to the emergence of high level structures, but they also
> constrain individual actions.
>
> So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. They
> lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody
> ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets
> which everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: thompnicks...@gmail.com
> Date: 10/29/20 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
> friam@redfish.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation
>
> All,
>
>
>
> Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right
> now, but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we
> thought emergence is.
>
>
>
> My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining
> aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the
> number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of
> a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.
> Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it
> depends on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg,
> you  put the heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in
> the backfield or ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and
> aggregativity a rarity.
>
>
>
> I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on
> “surprise” or “ignorance”.
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>
>
>
> I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more
> interesting than they may have started out, Nick.
>
>
>
> And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry
> weight.  (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless,
> and gives itself more credit than is earned.)
>
>
>
> The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a
> way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from
> it.
>
>
>
> Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight
> to compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little 

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[Jochen Fromm]

My two cents: I would say the secret to exotic phenomena like downward 
causation hides behind boring stuff we all know: behind laws and language, 
however boring that may sound. Aristotle said the whole is greater than the sum 
of its parts. The difference between the whole and the sum of its parts is the 
interaction between the parts, their interplay and their organisation.These 
interactions are determined by laws - the laws of nature, the rules of swarm 
intelligence or the laws which are engraved on stone tablets. The laws lead to 
the emergence of high level structures, but they also constrain individual 
actions. So in principle downward causation is simple: the laws are the key. 
They lead to emergence or downward causation. Stone tablets which everybody 
ignores have apparently no causally determined effect. But stone tablets which 
everybody obeys have obviously a strong causal connection to everyone.-J. 
 Original message From: thompnicks...@gmail.com Date: 10/29/20  
20:26  (GMT+01:00) To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
 Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation All, 
Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, 
but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought 
emergence is.   My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by 
defining aggregativity as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on 
the number of the elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of 
a football team.  He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  
Winning ability is an emergent property of a football team because it depends 
on how you organize the players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the 
heavier players on the line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or 
ends).  He concludes that emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity.  I 
like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on 
“surprise” or “ignorance”. N Nicholas ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Ethology 
and PsychologyClark 
UniversityThompNickSon2@gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/   
From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric SmithSent: 
Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AMTo: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity 
Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' 
Goats I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more 
interesting than they may have started out, Nick. And I also think you are 
right that the namers meant the names to carry weight.  (Though I also think 
most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives itself more credit than 
is earned.) The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was 
in a way rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from 
it. Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to 
compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below 
the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing. I know that in each paper 
I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize that the most I have done 
is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each boat…. Best, Eric On Oct 
29, 2020, at 1:20 PM,   
wrote: Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once.  
I really like Eric’s analysis.   I still want to protest abit.  I think the 
dynamic relation between the physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic 
metaphor is much more interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists 
use those metaphors for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists 
are right to explore their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the 
humanist to turn to the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.” The paradox 
of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of futures that can 
be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet they are totally 
unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do with our discussion 
of intenSion, a few months back.  It may also be time for one of you to be 
delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….” N . N 
Nicholas ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Ethology and PsychologyClark 
UniversityThompNickSon2@gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/  From: 
Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric SmithSent: Thursday, 
October 29, 2020 10:00 AMTo: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats I want 
to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread. It comes somehow straight out of 
Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….) 1. Some physicists figure out how 
to do a calculation, showing that some parts can go dynamically into an 
organized state, appealing to a combination of their own shapes and laws of 
large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t need to have the organized 
form imposed by any outside

[FRIAM] Emergence and Downward Causation

[thompnickson2]

All,

 

Nobody seems to have the energy for a conversation about emergence right now, 
but if we were to, I would hope we would start with saying what we thought 
emergence is. 

 

My working definition comes from Wimsatt.  He starts by defining aggregativity 
as a property of whole which is pretty much dependent on the number of the 
elements that compose it.  Weight is an aggregate property of a football team.  
He then defines emergence as a failure of aggregativity.  Winning ability is an 
emergent property of a football team because it depends on how you organize the 
players, not simply on their weight.  (eg, you  put the heavier players on the 
line, the lighter, faster players in the backfield or ends).  He concludes that 
emergence is the rule and aggregativity a rarity. 

 

I like this definition because, unlike many others, it does not depend on 
“surprise” or “ignorance”. 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

  
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:32 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I’m actually quite on board with your wish to make these questions more 
interesting than they may have started out, Nick.

 

And I also think you are right that the namers meant the names to carry weight. 
 (Though I also think most thought is a bit hurried and careless, and gives 
itself more credit than is earned.)

 

The interesting struggle will be that the original calculation was in a way 
rather small, compared to the metaphor that many hope can be spun from it.

 

Or perhaps said another way, maybe many of these things that have weight to 
compel as we experience them in life, are pointers to little mechanics below 
the surface that, in its own terms, is a small thing.

 

I know that in each paper I write, I imagine getting at a big idea, and realize 
that the most I have done is a small calculation.  So there is a foot in each 
boat….

 

Best,

 

Eric

 





On Oct 29, 2020, at 1:20 PM, mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

 

Sorry everybody.  I seem to be out of my depth in  many pools at once. 

 

I really like Eric’s analysis.  

 

I still want to protest abit.  I think the dynamic relation between the 
physical concept  and the physicist’s humanistic metaphor is much more 
interesting than this analysis would suggest.  Physicists use those metaphors 
for a reasons, cognitive and communicatory.  And humanists are right to explore 
their implications.  Otherwise, it would be fair for the humanist to turn to 
the physicist and say, “Shut up and calculate.”

 

The paradox of development (AKA epigenisis) is that there are all sorts of 
futures that can be known pretty precisely about a developing individual yet 
they are totally unknown to the individual that is developing.  It has to do 
with our discussion of intenSion, a few months back. 

 

It may also be time for one of you to be delegated to “elder” me, in the quaker 
tradition.  “Now, Nick, ….”

 

N .

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

 

 https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2020 10:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

 

I want to somehow say sigh and sigh on this thread.

 

It comes somehow straight out of Monty Python (Blessed are the cheesemakers….)

 

1. Some physicists figure out how to do a calculation, showing that some parts 
can go dynamically into an organized state, appealing to a combination of their 
own shapes and laws of large numbers for events that happen, and they don’t 
need to have the organized form imposed by any outside boundary conditions 
beyond the very low-level rules for how the events are sampled.  They already 
knew this happens in equilibrium, because that is how anything freezes.  But 
here they are seeing it in a dynamical context, where the ordered form happens 
to be more ordered than the states they could produce from somehow-similar 
components in equilibrium.

 

2. Physicsts, like everyone, are usually impatient and don’t want to have to 
recite the whole operational meaning of something every time they want to refer 
to it in the course of saying something else.

 

3. So the physicis

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Alfredo Covaleda Vélez]

Emergence in Nautilus

http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/emergence

On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 7:09 AM, Alfredo Covaleda Vélez 
wrote:

>
> Emergence on Nautilus
>
> http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/emergence
>

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[FRIAM] Emergence

[Alfredo Covaleda Vélez]

Emergence on Nautilus

http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/emergence

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[FRIAM] Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids

[Roger Critchlow]

So take a tub full of microscopic colloidal blobs, make the blobs roll
around by applying an external electrical field, and you can get the whole
mess to swarm.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7474/full/nature12673.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7474/full/503043a.html

Pretty darn clever for puree of Jello.

-- rec --

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Re: [FRIAM] emergence -- studies on "top down" limitations

[Nicholas Thompson]

Peggy, 

 

I felt I "ought" to be able to answer this question . note the use of modal
language. ( My sense of obligation and five dollars will get you a [small]
cup of coffee in any restaurant in Santa Fe.)  But I am not sure I quite
understood your question.  Is there a particular situation to which the
question applies that you could describe to me?  It might be easier to
answer in the particular.

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of peggy miller
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 11:12 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] emergence -- studies on "top down" limitations

 

Since "top-down" impacts emergent behavior, have there been studies that
take the same number and types of entities that are known to have emergent
behavior of some predictable form -- like flock of set type of birds, and
systematically change the "top" environment those entities exist in to study
whether it impacts the emergent behavior that forms?

Thanks for any input from you all.
Peggy Miller

-- 

Peggy Miller, owner/OEO 

Highland Winds

Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings

406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)

 


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[FRIAM] emergence -- studies on "top down" limitations

[peggy miller]

Since "top-down" impacts emergent behavior, have there been studies that
take the same number and types of entities that are known to have emergent
behavior of some predictable form -- like flock of set type of birds, and
systematically change the "top" environment those entities exist in to study
whether it impacts the emergent behavior that forms?

Thanks for any input from you all.
Peggy Miller

-- 
Peggy Miller, owner/OEO
Highland Winds
Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings
406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)

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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

[Jochen Fromm]

Russ,

If a paper contains mainly definitions,
arguments, metaphors, categorizations, or
even opinions, then it useful to ask if they are
useful, consistent and complete. A calculation
or a proof can be wrong and easily dismissed,
but a definition or a metaphor is harder
to dismiss. Opinions differ. Here it is more
useful to ask if they are helpful or not.

I think your comparison of abstract types
and emergent properties is interesting, but
for me it seems to capture only one important
aspect. The interesting thing is this: although
software developers rarely use any emergence
at all, nearly every fundamental concept in the
software world is related somehow to emergence,
because it all emerges from patterns of bits.

* Implementation can be considered as the
opposite of emergence: emergent properties
can be described as a high level abstraction
which is implemented by low level elements
(your paper "The reductionist blind spot")

* Objects and data types can be considered as
emergent properties of elementary data
(your new paper "Abstract Data Types and
Constructive Emergence")

* Instructions, procedures and functions
can be considered as emergent properties
of elementary operation codes (opcodes).
Sussman and Abelson defined a procedure
like this: "a procedure is a pattern for
the local evolution of a computational process".

* A code, a language, an interface or API, a virtual
machine or a new level of abstration can be
considered as the emergence of a new system,
because they connect two different systems.

In my opinion the last two cases describe aspects
of emergence which are not completely covered by
the paper, although they are very fundamental.

- J.

- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 2:47 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

Jochen,

Do you really think it would have been published if it could be dismissed as 
easily as you suggest?


-- Russ Abbott
_
 Professor, Computer Science
 California State University, Los Angeles

 Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
 blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
 vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_






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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

[Russ Abbott]

Jochen,

Do you really think it would have been published if it could be dismissed as
easily as you suggest?
*
-- Russ Abbott
_*
*  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_*



On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> Congratulations. The core idea of this paper seems to be that
> we can understand emergence as the realization of an abstract
> data type. So far so good, a glider in the Game of Life can
> be considered as an implementation or realization of the abstract
> data type glider, at least the form. Is it possible that the behavioral
> aspect is missing here? The gliders may interact which other
> objects, for example glider guns, spaceships, etc. in
> various ways.
>
> Consider a distributed algorithm running in a network
> of nodes, for instance the echo algorithm. The resulting
> wave which propagates through the system can be considered
> as an emergent property, entity or pattern, but is it an abstract
> data type? It seems to be more like an abstract operation,
> algorithm or process. I doubt that emergence in general is
> best understood as the realization/implementation of an abstract
> data type.
>
> -J.
>
> - Original Message - From: Russ Abbott
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 8:47 PM
> Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence paper
>
>
> My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has
> finally appeared in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the
> American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010 edition, pp 48-56). Among
> other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and Humphries in their
> Emergence book.
>
> -- Russ Abbott
> _
>  Professor, Computer Science
>  California State University, Los Angeles
>
>  Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
>  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
>  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
> _
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>
> 
> 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
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

[Jochen Fromm]

Congratulations. The core idea of this paper seems to be that
we can understand emergence as the realization of an abstract
data type. So far so good, a glider in the Game of Life can
be considered as an implementation or realization of the abstract
data type glider, at least the form. Is it possible that the behavioral
aspect is missing here? The gliders may interact which other
objects, for example glider guns, spaceships, etc. in
various ways.

Consider a distributed algorithm running in a network
of nodes, for instance the echo algorithm. The resulting
wave which propagates through the system can be considered
as an emergent property, entity or pattern, but is it an abstract
data type? It seems to be more like an abstract operation,
algorithm or process. I doubt that emergence in general is
best understood as the realization/implementation of an abstract
data type.

-J.

- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 8:47 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence paper

My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has 
finally appeared in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the 
American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010 edition, pp 48-56). Among 
other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and Humphries in their 
Emergence book.


-- Russ Abbott
_
 Professor, Computer Science
 California State University, Los Angeles

 Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
 blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
 vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_









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[FRIAM] Emergence paper

[Russ Abbott]

My short paper, "Abstract Data Types and Constructive Emergence," has
finally appeared in the *Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing* of the
American Philosophical Association (Spring 2010
edition,
pp 48-56). Among other things, I answer the questions raised by Bedau and
Humphries in their *Emergence *book.
*
-- Russ Abbott
_*
*  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja)
  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
_*

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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence - a definition

[Pamela McCorduck]

I'll drink to that.


On Jul 22, 2010, at 11:23 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:

> Finally! A definition of emergence.  A formalism for almost all.  'Emergence' 
> is  33% Grenache Blanc, 29% Marsanne, 25% Viognier and 13% Roussanne and was 
> available from Trader Joes for about $7 a bottle.
> Bonne santé!
> Robert C
> 
> 
> 
> 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
> 


"God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a 
draft--nay, but the draft of a draft. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!"

Melville, "Moby Dick"



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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence - a definition

[Douglas Roberts]

Somehow this reminds me of Harlen Ellison's *A Boy And His Dog*.

"Well, I'd certainly say she had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not
particularly good taste."


--Doug

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Robert J. Cordingley <
rob...@cirrillian.com> wrote:

> Finally! A definition of emergence.  A formalism for almost all.
>  'Emergence' is  33% Grenache Blanc, 29% Marsanne, 25% Viognier and 13%
> Roussanne and was available from Trader Joes for about $7 a bottle.
> Bonne santé!
> Robert C
>
>
>

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[FRIAM] Emergence - a definition

[Robert J. Cordingley]

Finally! A definition of emergence.  A formalism for almost all.  
'Emergence' is  33% Grenache Blanc, 29% Marsanne, 25% Viognier and 13% 
Roussanne and was available from Trader Joes for about $7 a bottle.

Bonne santé!
Robert C



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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Russell Gonnering]

Stephen-

I'm all ears.

Russ#3
.-. . -.. ..-. .. ...  -... .-.. ..- . ..-. .. ... 
On Jan 18, 2010, at 10:02 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> Hi Russell,
> 
> A group of us here in Santa Fe have a strong interest in applications of 
> complexity to health care systems. We've worked on a few small exploratory 
> projects looking at the mental health systems in Florida and California as 
> well as health delivery for NHS in the UK. We are starting with the easier 
> bits of data visualization of caseflow data based on billing data and then 
> incorporating agent-based models. While only research-phase at this point, we 
> would be very interested to understand how we can approach health care and 
> other social systems like criminal justice as self-organizing systems 
> structuring in non-equilibrium contexts.
> 
> -Stephen
> --- -. .   ..-. .. ...    - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... 
> stephen.gue...@redfish.com
> (m) 505.577.5828  (o) 505.995.0206
> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ ambientpixel.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 18, 2010, at 4:23 PM, Russell Gonnering wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I know I've come to the party late, but I was fascinated by Russ Abbott's 
>> essay in Complexity, 2006.  CT has so much to give to the health care 
>> debate, and so few people interested in exploring it.  Even ardent 
>> "complexionists" (?) sometimes deny health care as a CAS.  Value in health 
>> care is an emergent concept.  Attempts at imposed order, without recognition 
>> of emergent order and starting point, will push the system into chaos (ala 
>> David Snowden's "Cynefin Framework").
>> 
>> Russ Gonnering ("Russ #3"
>> 
>> 
>> 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
> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Russell Gonnering]

I'd love to discuss this topic in more detail with anyone who is interested.  
It is currently a topic of my guest blog on www.cognitive-edge.com

Since Flexner in 1910, we have followed a "Scientific Management" approach to 
medicine.  Truth is, we had to, as there was so much quackery involved in 
medicine and medical education at that time.  We used a reductionist 
methodology to solve the complicated areas of medicine and healthcare.  There 
was quite a bit.  However, the "wicked problems", to use complexity theory 
jargon, remained.  Our mistake was attempting to use the same reductionist 
principles in dealing with problems of finance, access and lifestyle choices.  
It's not so much that numbers are not our friends, its that numbers do not 
supply the answers.

"Evidence based medicine" is an extension of the reductionist methodology.  It 
works great for complicated problems in medicine.  It is useless for complex 
problems, and an attempt at employing it only makes the complex problems worse. 
 Is the cost/access/quality conundrum better or worse now than 15 years ago?  I 
would say it is WORSE because we have treated the problem as complicated, 
attempted to impose order in an emergently-ordered system and failed to 
recognize inflection points for change.  As Porter and Teisberg have so 
eloquently stated in "Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition 
on Results", our well-meaning tinkering has exacerbated the problem and pushed 
us to the brink of chaos.  If things progress along the same trajectory, we 
will be off the cliff shortly.

There is an extensive body of academic thought on this subject.  Google "Paul 
Plsek", "Sholum Glouberman" "Mark Quirk" and "Trisha Greenhalgh" for 
peer-reviewed articles.  Medicine is a combination of metacognition and 
intuition.  Reductionist thinking fails both.

The proof, of course, is in the results.  www.plexusinstitute.org describes the 
ONLY studies that have shown a reduction in MRSA, the scourge of the modern 
hospital.  It has not been reduced through process, but through "positive 
deviance".

The answer, in my humble opinion, is not an either/or approach to process and 
starting point--like Avedis Donabedian, I believe both are important.  
Evidence-based medicine is needed in SOME areas, but in others, it will lead to 
an intellectual tyranny and analysis paralysis.  The key is knowing where, and 
when, to make the shift.

The exclusive application of population-based studies to individual patient 
care is only satisfactory to the newly-minted physician, and will never be 
satisfactory to the patient.  I myself was in the situation of having had an 
anaphylactic reaction to a blood transfusion, only to have the blood bank 
pathologist tell me it should not have happened, and he wanted to repeat the 
process.  I told him to take a flying leap, especially since pre-treating me 
with steroids (outside the "evidence-based" protocol) solved the problem.

Population studies alone would be viable if every patient had the same starting 
point. We have not advanced enough to identify all the characteristics of those 
starting points.  "Outcome" is an emergent characteristic, and is almost 
impossible to exactly duplicate.  It can be approximated, but the degree to 
which it is approximated is an intersection of that metacognition and 
intuition.  Both are "capabilities", not skills, that can be learned but cannot 
be taught.  

If health care was easy, why would we have such a mess on our hands?

The truth is we need people like you, people who understand Complex Adaptive 
Systems, to become involved in the debate and demand that those in the position 
to make decisions wake up and listen to us.

My "zwei Groeschen"

Russ #3
On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:41 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:

> 
> 
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Pamela McCorduck  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:15 PM, Miles Parker wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> It was surprising to me to find the extent to which just basic traditional 
> statistical techniques have not made it into health care practice until quite 
> recently. Is it a stretch to imagine that part of the reluctance of doctors 
> to embrace the kinds of techniques used in other fields could be in part due 
> to an inherent (if unstated and poorly realized) conviction that these 
> systems have emergent properties?
> 
> Maybe they don't think numbers are their friends.
> 
> That just doesn't add up. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Doug Roberts
> drobe...@rti.org
> d...@parrot-farm.net
> 505-455-7333 - Office
> 505-670-8195 - Cell
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscri

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Douglas Roberts]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Pamela McCorduck  wrote:

>
> On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:15 PM, Miles Parker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> It was surprising to me to find the extent to which just basic traditional
>> statistical techniques have not made it into health care practice until
>> quite recently. Is it a stretch to imagine that part of the reluctance of
>> doctors to embrace the kinds of techniques used in other fields could be in
>> part due to an inherent (if unstated and poorly realized) conviction that
>> these systems have emergent properties?
>>
>
> Maybe they don't think numbers are their friends.


That just doesn't add up.


>
> 
> 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
>
>
>
> --
> Doug Roberts
> drobe...@rti.org
> d...@parrot-farm.net
> 505-455-7333 - Office
> 505-670-8195 - Cell
>

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Pamela McCorduck]

On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:15 PM, Miles Parker wrote:




It was surprising to me to find the extent to which just basic  
traditional statistical techniques have not made it into health care  
practice until quite recently. Is it a stretch to imagine that part  
of the reluctance of doctors to embrace the kinds of techniques used  
in other fields could be in part due to an inherent (if unstated and  
poorly realized) conviction that these systems have emergent  
properties?


Maybe they don't think numbers are their friends.



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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Miles Parker]

And once you add in issues of outcomes, you automatically get into areas of 
practice, i.e. actual human bodies, which seems to have obviously emergent 
properties.

It was surprising to me to find the extent to which just basic traditional 
statistical techniques have not made it into health care practice until quite 
recently. Is it a stretch to imagine that part of the reluctance of doctors to 
embrace the kinds of techniques used in other fields could be in part due to an 
inherent (if unstated and poorly realized) conviction that these systems have 
emergent properties?

A fascinating article on evidence-based stuff below. It makes me wonder if 
there must first be a good understanding of the data driven stuff, or if we 
will quickly find ourselves pushed into a fragile corner as I think russell is 
suggesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=evidence-based%20medicine&st=cse


Not coincidently, Gary An has talked a lot about evidence-based approaches, 
within the context of broader complexity issues. Health care issues came up 
repeatedly at the most recent swarmfest..

The obesity epidemic itself could in some sense be thought of as an emrgent 
phenomenon, depending on what your definition of emerge is. :)

On Jan 18, 2010, at 8:02 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> Hi Russell,
> 
> A group of us here in Santa Fe have a strong interest in applications of 
> complexity to health care systems. We've worked on a few small exploratory 
> projects looking at the mental health systems in Florida and California as 
> well as health delivery for NHS in the UK. We are starting with the easier 
> bits of data visualization of caseflow data based on billing data and then 
> incorporating agent-based models. While only research-phase at this point, we 
> would be very interested to understand how we can approach health care and 
> other social systems like criminal justice as self-organizing systems 
> structuring in non-equilibrium contexts.
> 
> -Stephen
> --- -. .   ..-. .. ...    - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... 
> stephen.gue...@redfish.com
> (m) 505.577.5828  (o) 505.995.0206
> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ ambientpixel.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 18, 2010, at 4:23 PM, Russell Gonnering wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I know I've come to the party late, but I was fascinated by Russ Abbott's 
>> essay in Complexity, 2006.  CT has so much to give to the health care 
>> debate, and so few people interested in exploring it.  Even ardent 
>> "complexionists" (?) sometimes deny health care as a CAS.  Value in health 
>> care is an emergent concept.  Attempts at imposed order, without recognition 
>> of emergent order and starting point, will push the system into chaos (ala 
>> David Snowden's "Cynefin Framework").
>> 
>> Russ Gonnering ("Russ #3"
>> 
>> 
>> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 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



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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Stephen Guerin]

Hi Russell,

A group of us here in Santa Fe have a strong interest in applications  
of complexity to health care systems. We've worked on a few small  
exploratory projects looking at the mental health systems in Florida  
and California as well as health delivery for NHS in the UK. We are  
starting with the easier bits of data visualization of caseflow data  
based on billing data and then incorporating agent-based models. While  
only research-phase at this point, we would be very interested to  
understand how we can approach health care and other social systems  
like criminal justice as self-organizing systems structuring in non- 
equilibrium contexts.


-Stephen
--- -. .   ..-. .. ...    - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... 
stephen.gue...@redfish.com
(m) 505.577.5828  (o) 505.995.0206
redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ ambientpixel.com








On Jan 18, 2010, at 4:23 PM, Russell Gonnering wrote:



I know I've come to the party late, but I was fascinated by Russ  
Abbott's essay in Complexity, 2006.  CT has so much to give to the  
health care debate, and so few people interested in exploring it.   
Even ardent "complexionists" (?) sometimes deny health care as a  
CAS.  Value in health care is an emergent concept.  Attempts at  
imposed order, without recognition of emergent order and starting  
point, will push the system into chaos (ala David Snowden's "Cynefin  
Framework").


Russ Gonnering ("Russ #3"


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Dear Russ #3

Emerence is an all-night party.  Hard to be late to.  I, however, am lost
in Mathematical Thinking at the moment, and so will cede this inquiry to
others. 

Nick  

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




> [Original Message]
> From: Russell Gonnering 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 1/18/2010 4:24:27 PM
> Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence
>
>
> I know I've come to the party late, but I was fascinated by Russ Abbott's
essay in Complexity, 2006.  CT has so much to give to the health care
debate, and so few people interested in exploring it.  Even ardent
"complexionists" (?) sometimes deny health care as a CAS.  Value in health
care is an emergent concept.  Attempts at imposed order, without
recognition of emergent order and starting point, will push the system into
chaos (ala David Snowden's "Cynefin Framework").
>
> Russ Gonnering ("Russ #3"
>
> 
> 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




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[FRIAM] Emergence

[Russell Gonnering]

I know I've come to the party late, but I was fascinated by Russ Abbott's essay 
in Complexity, 2006.  CT has so much to give to the health care debate, and so 
few people interested in exploring it.  Even ardent "complexionists" (?) 
sometimes deny health care as a CAS.  Value in health care is an emergent 
concept.  Attempts at imposed order, without recognition of emergent order and 
starting point, will push the system into chaos (ala David Snowden's "Cynefin 
Framework").

Russ Gonnering ("Russ #3"


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence X. Trying to wrap things up.

[Douglas Roberts]

On those  "the strength of a triangle", and "that triangleness causes
strength" suppositions:   Bosh.  Balderdash.  Bushwaw.  Bull Puckee.

Everybody knows that triangles are inherently unstable because eventually
(and sooner rather than later), the injured party finds out about that third
"leg", and then all *Hell* breaks loose.  Divorce invariably ensues, and the
triangle once more  becomes flatland, with nary an angle to be found, much
less individual well-arranged legs.

Trust me Nick, you don't want to go the triangle route.

--Doug

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>   If I say that the strength of a triangle is due (in part, obviously) to
> the arrangement  of its legs, have I  "reduced" the  the triangle's strength
> to the properties of its legs?  Well, that depends on what one means by
> reduced.  If by reduced, one means that only that one has made mention of
> the legs in the course of explaining a property of the whole, then, the
> explanation is, indeed, a reduction.   If,  on the other hand, the
> requirement of reduction is that the explanation make mention *only of the
> properties of the individual parts,* then the explanation fails as a
> reduction, because an "arrangement" of legs is not strictly speaking, a
> property of the individual legs, themselves.  "An arrangement" is already a
> nominal emergent of the legs.  On this account, an explanation of the
> properties of a whole by reference to a temporal or spacial arrangement of
> its parts is in fact an explanation of one emergent property by another.
>
> This seems to open up a crack in the argument that non-reductive
> physicalism violates the causal closure of the physical.   For, it suggests
> that any complete explanation of properties at one level in terms of
> properties of another would have  at least  three steps.  The first step is
> the emergent to emergent step,  showing that nominal emergent properties
> lead to other emergent properties.  The second step is to identify the
> causes of the arrangement, which could be physical causes.  The third step
> is to show  why it is that arrangement in this way facilitates those
> properties.  These, too,  could be physical causes.   So, if we now allow
> into our concept of causal closure of the physical  to include the idea that
> arrangements of parts are constraints on the motions and positions of those
> parts, can't have a dual account where triangleness causes strength and the
> physical properties of the elements of a triangle (the legs and the joints)
> cause THAT [triangleness causes strength].   Causal closure of the physical
> is complete because if *nominally* emergent properties such as temporal
> and spatial arrangement are allowed into the family of physical causes, we
> just have a case of physical causes causing physical causes.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
>
>
>
>
>

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[FRIAM] Emergence X. Trying to wrap things up.

[Nicholas Thompson]

If I say that the strength of a triangle is due (in part, obviously) to the 
arrangement  of its legs, have I  "reduced" the  the triangle's strength to the 
properties of its legs?  Well, that depends on what one means by reduced.  If 
by reduced, one means that only that one has made mention of the legs in the 
course of explaining a property of the whole, then, the explanation is, indeed, 
a reduction.   If,  on the other hand, the requirement of reduction is that the 
explanation make mention only of the properties of the individual parts, then 
the explanation fails as a reduction, because an "arrangement" of legs is not 
strictly speaking, a property of the individual legs, themselves.  "An 
arrangement" is already a nominal emergent of the legs.  On this account, an 
explanation of the properties of a whole by reference to a temporal or spacial 
arrangement of its parts is in fact an explanation of one emergent property by 
another.   

This seems to open up a crack in the argument that non-reductive physicalism 
violates the causal closure of the physical.   For, it suggests that any 
complete explanation of properties at one level in terms of properties of 
another would have  at least  three steps.  The first step is the emergent to 
emergent step,  showing that nominal emergent properties lead to other emergent 
properties.  The second step is to identify the causes of the arrangement, 
which could be physical causes.  The third step is to show  why it is that 
arrangement in this way facilitates those properties.  These, too,  could be 
physical causes.   So, if we now allow into our concept of causal closure of 
the physical  to include the idea that arrangements of parts are constraints on 
the motions and positions of those parts, can't have a dual account where 
triangleness causes strength and the physical properties of the elements of a 
triangle (the legs and the joints) cause THAT [triangleness causes strength].   
Causal closure of the physical is complete because if nominally emergent 
properties such as temporal and spatial arrangement are allowed into the family 
of physical causes, we just have a case of physical causes causing physical 
causes.  

Nick   


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[glen e. p. ropella]

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-10-06 11:39 PM:
> In fact, it is not clear to me that Rosen's Life Itself was
> not an attempt to create that very formalization.  Have you ever looked at
> Rosen

I know you were talking to Owen (am I hijacking the thread, here?); but
I'd like to say that I _do_ think Rosen's work on _complexity_ is a
start towards the ability to create complex (computational) formalisms
-- where Rosen's claim is that all current (computational) formalisms
are _simple_ because of the way we define and implement them.

The trouble with Rosen's work and its extensions is that, in order to
construct such formalisms, we _must_ include construction loops.  And
when we include construction loops in computational systems, we get
ambiguity (multivalence... multiple, equally correct, answers to the
same question).  In the most strict situations, the ambiguity is
realized as things like "deadlocks" (where multiple blocking processes
are waiting for the same resource) and (I speculate) race conditions
(where multiple concurrent processes race to see which will get its way
in the end).

So, while we can build these formalisms, they are unsatisfying to the
little engineering homunculus in our heads because they violate a sacred
requirement:  they don't reduce to a single outcome.  No SANE computer
scientist would want to build an ambiguous computing device.  Right?!?!
 ;-)  Or perhaps I should say no sane computer _engineer_ would want
to...  By all rights, a computer SCIENTIST would love to create such
things and study them.

I qualify "formalism" with "computational" because we do have
non-algorithm, mathematical, philosophical, and logical formalisms that
express complexity in this sense.  But they require us to toss out the
axiom of regularity (which says that sets can't be members of
themselves).  This makes any computation we formulate in such a wacko
formalism open to running forever (infinite regress, race conditions,
deadlocks, etc.) or coming up with multiple different results.  Also
note that all the standard computer programming languages are "turing
complete", which, according to Rosen's work, means any program written
in them will be a _simple_... not complex ... system.

In any case, sorry for the distraction.  It's not at all clear how these
formalisms relate to "emergence" UNLESS we define emergence as a measure
of complexity.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com



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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Roger Critchlow]

And, to add to the confusion, there is the question of brain states vs.
measured brain states.

Here's the Wired article about doing fMRI experiments on a dead salmon, and
getting a result that could have been easily  published if the subject had
been a live human being:

  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

And here's the poster that the researchers have been presenting:

  *http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf*

fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) uses treatment/control
comparisons of brain imagery on the assumption that the active parts will
have more oxygen in them so they can tell which parts of the brain are
more/less active under the treatment condition.

In the experiment described the researchers asked the dead salmon to
identify what the people in the pictures were feeling and compared the
imagery taken during rest states to the imagery taken while the salmon was
analyzing pictures.

So, whatever the relationship between brain states and mind states, the
relationship between brain states and fMRI results is not obvious.  (To be
fair, the point of the poster is that researchers should apply tests for
chance correlations that they could but often don't bother with.)

-- rec --

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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Jim, 

I couldn't find the word subsumption in Hemple and Oppenheim, so pending
your locating it for me, I will just blather on aimlessly concerning my
prejudices: 

Speaking as the seminar Convener.   The "heartland" of supervenience is
hypothetical relationship between mind states and brain states.  "Mind
states supervene upon brain states".  The need for the term arises because
people want to think that brain states CAUSE inind states, but they now
full well that there is no single, particular, brain state necessary to any
particualr mind state.  Just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there
are many ways for your neurons to arrange themselves where you are
"thinking about your grandmother".  This all has to do with ambiguities in
our notions of causality.  C is said (by some) to cause E when C is prior
to E, C "touches" E (in some sense), and C is necessary for or sufficient
to E.   Supervenience captures the case in which each C is sufficient for E
but no C(i) is necessary for it.  It is such an embedded  term of art in
the philosophy that no matter how difficult we find it, we HAVE to learn
it.  

Speaking as a Member of the Seminar:  Mind/body philosophers are being
driven gah-gah by their resistance to the obvious:   brain states are
neither mind states by another name nor their causal antecedents.   It is
neither true that any particular neuronal pattern is required for thinking
about your grandmother nor that any particular neuronal pattern is
sufficient for thinking  about your grandmother.   As we all know, complex
systems don't work that way.   In addition, "thinking about your
grandmother" is a doing.  (It is fun to watch my grandchildren when they
are called upon to "remember" something.  They dont just say stuff; they DO
stuff.  To "remember" is to stand in relation to the world.).  The
relationship of behavior activities to neural activities is much like the
relationship of the shape of your nose to the transmissional machinery of
development.  A whole lot went into shaping your nose and even though your
nose looks a lot like your grandpa Eddy's, there was no nose-unculus that
grew to be your present nose nor any blueprint of Eddy's nose that guided
the creation of yours.  If you want to understand the relationship between
mind (behavior) states and brain (physiological) states, I recommend that
we all read Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful.  The notion of a
"thought of X" is a lot like the notion of a "gene for X": it is an
illusion to be dispelled. 

Does subsumption help? 

There are two definitions of subsumption on Dic dot com, one general, one
technical. 

GENERAL ( courtesy of Collins) subsume
Verb
[-suming, -sumed] Formal to include (something) under a larger
classification or group: an attempt to subsume fascism and communism under
a general concept of totalitarianism [Latin sub- under + sumere to take] 

So, if I were to substitute subsume for supervene above, I would come out
with  "Mental states subsume brain states."  Hmmm!  I dont think it means
the same thing at all.  In fact, I think (as a member of the seminar, not
its Convener) tha tit makes a lot more sense than "mental states supervene
upon brain states." 

TECHNICAL (noun) subsumption

2.  Logic The minor premise of a syllogism.  

Major Premise: All Swans are White
MINOR premise: this bird is a swan.
Conclusion: This bird is white.  

(I hope I have this right).Since Hempel is deep into the
logico-deductive method, we would expect that he has THIS meaning of
subsumption in "mind".  (But until I find the place where the word occurs,
I cannot be sure.)   It is the part of the deductive nomological syllogism
that connects the particular case to the law.  Sometimes called the
Antecedent.  Notice that it does SUBSUME the bird in hand under the
category "swans" just as in the brick-on-toe example, YOUR brick is
subsumed under the category "unsupported objects".  Once subsumed, it
becomes subject to the law laid out in the major premise.  

But, I still don't quite see what this has to do with supervenience.  

So, after all that, I think my answer is "no". 

Nick

PS:  I finally found where the word is used.  Gawd I am a blind old bat! 
No, I don't think its a substitute.  

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: Jim Gattiker 
> To: 
> Cc: Chip Garner ; Frank Wimberly
; maryl ; merle
; michel bloch ; nthompson
; Owen Densmore ; Roger E
Critchlow Jr ; 
> Date: 10/7/2009 10:23:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence
seminar: what's next?
>
> I've been having trouble 

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Owen, 

For many, mind, consciousness, "life", etc.,  are what makes the emergence
conversation interesting.  I happen to share your opinion, but if we are to
know what we are talking about in this domain, we had better have SOME
contact with that viewpoint.  Which means that, at some point, we are going
to have to come to terms with "supervenience"But I am willing to hold
off until we have read part II.  

I think being exposed to the range of meanings attached to terms like
emergence and reduction is one of the great benefits to what we are doing. 
One of our problems in discussions here is that each of us tends to assume
that the meaning  he attaches to a word is the same meaning that everybody
else does.   That works find if you are talking to yourself, but if one is
going to talk to other people, one has to have enough acquaintance with the
variety  of uses of terms to anticipate others responses to what one is
saying.  

Our brief discussion of "ontology" was a great case in point.  

Nick 

PS:  Not clear to me why Wimsatt is not the beginning of a possible
formalization.  In fact, it is not clear to me that Rosen's Life Itself was
not an attempt to create that very formalization.  Have you ever looked at
Rosen



 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: Owen Densmore 
> To: Nicholas Thompson 
> Cc: Jim Gattiker ; Frank Wimberly
; Roger E Critchlow Jr ; Chip Garner
; maryl ; nthompson

> Date: 10/6/2009 4:06:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS:  emergence
seminar: what's next?
>
> As much as I like the seminar, I find it frustrating due to the huge  
> variation in scale under study of the authors.  Mind, conscienceness,  
> etc are just too remote.  I appreciate it when brought into concrete  
> ideas such as patterns, aggregativity, resultant properties, nominal  
> emergence and so on, especially with specific examples.
>
> But I am not interested in the philosophic, other than Glen's great  
> observation that they are in the wilds looking for the Next Big  
> Thing.  Fine, so we've read enough of that to be getting on with things.
>
> For the seminar, my goal is not simply understanding the broad,  
> current, philosophic notions of emergence.  Rather I am interested in  
> emergence "in silico".  I.e. models, computation, mathematics.  For  
> example, emergence may be related to a "no shortcuts" computational  
> complexity class like P, NP and others.
>
> Now why is this?  Because in science we typically isolate the minimal  
> example of the phenomenon under study, and look for concrete  
> properties that the phenomenon exhibits.
>
> In chaos, we look at the iterated logistic map, say.  From it we are  
> surprised that divergence, at a particular value of the logistic  
> constant, becomes of interest.  Bifurcation also is of interest in the  
> less chaotic realm.  We "get a grip" on the simple example and see if  
> we can define the phenomenon within the simple.
>
> The book does not seem to be doing this.  (I may be wrong, point me to  
> where you see this happening.)  Is it impossible?  For example, could  
> we use the Game of Life or other models just as chaos used the  
> logistic map?  Could we then look for emergence within these models?   
> Then see if we can define a metric analogous to divergence for chaos?
>
> So concretely, I propose we go after the chapters in the book  
> satisfying the above.  Then possibly explore other papers that may be  
> more along that line, especially in silico.  Note that many of the  
> papers are rather dated, and much has been done since.
>
> Seminars have goals.  I'd like to nudge ours toward computation.
>
>  -- Owen
>
>
> On Oct 5, 2009, at 2:00 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> > Glen,
> >
> > My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what  
> > follows
> > is little more than spin.
> >
> > In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled  
> > literature,
> > we have come up with only one way to characterize the different  
> > views of
> > emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
> > epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
> > soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
> > object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular  
> > list
> > of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from  
> > the part
> > attributes using that theory.  So, to say

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Owen, 

The answer to your question was meant to be in the post.I have added
some stuff to try to make it clearer. 


Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive nomological account of
explanation.  
 
For example, let it be the case that I am curious why the brick fell on my
toe when I let go of it
 
If I have a theory that says that all unsupported objects fall, and the
observations that I let go of the brick and my toe was under it, then I
have an adequate explanation for my damaged toe.  Notice I didnt have to
mention gravity once

The form of the explanation is deductive syllogism:   

LAW:All sunsupported oBjects fall (This is the nomological part).  e
ANTECEDENT: This brick was  an unsupported object
ANTECEDENT:  My toe was under the brick
CONCLUSION:  Therefore, this brick fell on my toe.   


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: Owen Densmore 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 10/6/2009 9:01:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al;WAS: emergence
seminar: what's next?
>
> BTW: I believe this may be more in the line of Nick's statement:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive-nomological_model

Nick?

 -- Owen


On Oct 6, 2009, at 8:51 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> The specific phrase I believe we are discussing is, on page 64:
>  "The preceding considerations suggest the following redefinition of  
> emergence: The occurrence of a characteristic W in an object w is  
> emergent relative to a theory T, a part relation Pt, and a class G  
> of attributes if that occurrence cannot be deduced by means of T  
> from a characterization of the Pt-parts of w with respect to all the  
> attributes in G."
>
>> Main Entry: no·mo·log·i·cal
>> Function: adjective
>> Etymology: nomology science of physical and logical laws, from  
>> Greek nomos + English -logy
>> : relating to or expressing basic physical laws or rules of  
>> reasoning 
>
> We have found that the discussions within the book use words in ways  
> specific to their context.  Thus Nick's "deductive nomological  
> account of explanation" is likely to mean more than the individual  
> words might imply.
>
> Possibly we are failing to use the word "logic"?
>
> I still think we should add it to the Nictionary if it is of use.   
> It seems to be.
>
>-- Owen
>
>
> On Oct 6, 2009, at 5:17 PM, Robert Cordingley wrote:
>
>> It's already there:
>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomological
>> Robert C
>>
>> Owen Densmore wrote:
>>> On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>>> 
>>>> But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive  
>>>> nomological account of explanation.
>>>
>>> Could you clarify the above? .. and maybe add "nomological" to the  
>>> Nictionary?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>  -- Owen
>
>
> 
> 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



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Owen Densmore]

BTW: I believe this may be more in the line of Nick's statement:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive-nomological_model

Nick?

-- Owen


On Oct 6, 2009, at 8:51 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:


The specific phrase I believe we are discussing is, on page 64:
 "The preceding considerations suggest the following redefinition of  
emergence: The occurrence of a characteristic W in an object w is  
emergent relative to a theory T, a part relation Pt, and a class G  
of attributes if that occurrence cannot be deduced by means of T  
from a characterization of the Pt-parts of w with respect to all the  
attributes in G."



Main Entry: no·mo·log·i·cal
Function: adjective
Etymology: nomology science of physical and logical laws, from  
Greek nomos + English -logy
: relating to or expressing basic physical laws or rules of  
reasoning 


We have found that the discussions within the book use words in ways  
specific to their context.  Thus Nick's "deductive nomological  
account of explanation" is likely to mean more than the individual  
words might imply.


Possibly we are failing to use the word "logic"?

I still think we should add it to the Nictionary if it is of use.   
It seems to be.


   -- Owen


On Oct 6, 2009, at 5:17 PM, Robert Cordingley wrote:


It's already there:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomological
Robert C

Owen Densmore wrote:

On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:



But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive  
nomological account of explanation.


Could you clarify the above? .. and maybe add "nomological" to the  
Nictionary?


Thanks!

 -- Owen




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




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

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Owen Densmore]

The specific phrase I believe we are discussing is, on page 64:
  "The preceding considerations suggest the following redefinition of  
emergence: The occurrence of a characteristic W in an object w is  
emergent relative to a theory T, a part relation Pt, and a class G of  
attributes if that occurrence cannot be deduced by means of T from a  
characterization of the Pt-parts of w with respect to all the  
attributes in G."



Main Entry: no·mo·log·i·cal
Function: adjective
Etymology: nomology science of physical and logical laws, from Greek  
nomos + English -logy
: relating to or expressing basic physical laws or rules of  
reasoning 


We have found that the discussions within the book use words in ways  
specific to their context.  Thus Nick's "deductive nomological account  
of explanation" is likely to mean more than the individual words might  
imply.


Possibly we are failing to use the word "logic"?

I still think we should add it to the Nictionary if it is of use.  It  
seems to be.


-- Owen


On Oct 6, 2009, at 5:17 PM, Robert Cordingley wrote:


It's already there:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomological
Robert C

Owen Densmore wrote:

On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:



But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive nomological  
account of explanation.


Could you clarify the above? .. and maybe add "nomological" to the  
Nictionary?


Thanks!

  -- Owen




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Robert Cordingley]

It's already there:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomological
Robert C

Owen Densmore wrote:

On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:



But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive nomological 
account of explanation.


Could you clarify the above? .. and maybe add "nomological" to the 
Nictionary?


Thanks!

   -- Owen



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




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Owen Densmore]

On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:



But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive nomological  
account of explanation.


Could you clarify the above? .. and maybe add "nomological" to the  
Nictionary?


Thanks!

   -- Owen



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence of a New Online Museum

[Owen Densmore]

Gawd, you finally did it .. I'm moving all my feeds to Google Reader.

I hope you're proud of your self!  Humph.

-- Owen

On Oct 5, 2009, at 9:30 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:






Things you can do from here:
Subscribe to Cosmic Variance using Google Reader
Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your  
favorite sites





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[FRIAM] Emergence of a New Online Museum

[Roger Critchlow]

Well, well, well, what do we have here.

-- rec --



Sent to you by Roger via Google Reader:


Emergence of a New Online
Museum
via Cosmic Variance  by
John on 10/5/09

The Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter  has
released a new online museum, The Emergent
Universe.
This is, I think a truly novel approach to communicating the central ideas
of the new field of emergent phenomena and complexity, combining the
underlying physical basis of a wide array of examples with art and music.
The site itself presents an animated, non-directed interface to branching
sets of topics and what I guess one would call exhibits (since it’s a museum
after all). A lot of these are quite fun, and instructive. A visitor is left
with the feeling that there is lots more to explore. The interface itself, I
have to say, is very cool and a glimpse of what is to come on the internet.
Today’s text- and photo-heavy web pages are bound to give way to sleek
sophisticated designs like this one…

Have fun!



Things you can do from here:

   - Subscribe to Cosmic
Varianceusing
   *Google Reader*
   - Get started using Google
Readerto easily keep up
with
   *all your favorite sites*

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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

As I have often demonstrated before, I am smart enough to get us into a mess, 
but not smart enough to get us out. 

But Hempel and Oppenheim are big on the deductiive nomological account of 
explanation.  

So let it be the case that I am curious why the brick fell on my toe when I let 
go of it

If I have a theory that says that all unsupported objects fall, and the 
observations that I let go of the brick and my toe was under it, then I have an 
adequate explanation for my damaged toe.  Notice I didnt have to mention 
gravity once. 

But you know more about this than I do, dont you?  

Nick  



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: Roger Critchlow
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; 
nickthomp...@earthlink.net; Owen Densmore; Jim Gattiker; Frank Wimberly; Chip 
Garner; maryl; nthompson
Sent: 10/5/2009 3:59:15 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence 
seminar: what's next?


What do they do about characteristics that don't have descriptions in T? For 
example, a house has the characteristic of having 3 bedrooms. That 
characteristic doesn't exist in theories describing 2 x 4's, PVC, drywall, 
nails, stucco, etc. What would they do with that? If it's emergent, then no 
"better" theory will eliminate it. If it's not emergent, then how can anything 
else be emergent but not this?

-- Russ Abbott
_
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/




On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:

H&O are quite methodical: "emergence: The occurrence of a characteristic W in 
an object w is emergent relative to a theory T, a part relation Pt, and a class 
G of attributes if that occurrence cannot be deduced by means of T from a 
characterization of the Pt-parts of w with respect to all the attributes in G."

I suspect that the proper characteristics of T are the treated in other parts 
of Hempel's book, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the 
Philosophy of Science, so it isn't fair to assume that it's entirely arbitrary 
and ad hoc.

However, the purpose of the definition is to exterminate emergence, it is a 
temporary state of ignorance which will be remedied by an improved theory.  
That the improved theory might be entirely stated in relations between 
"emergent" ontologies -- eg molecules, cells, organisms, populations, etc -- is 
of no concern, they are no longer emergent if they're in the theory.

-- rec --

If it's in the theory, it's in the theory!



On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Russ Abbott  wrote:

Quoting Nick,


For [Hempel and Oppenheim], a characteristic of on object is emergent relative 
to a theory and relative to a particular list of part attributes when that 
characteristic cannot be deduced from the part attributes using that theory.  
So, to say that a property is emergent is only to say something about the state 
of our theory with respect to the data we have already gathered.


That seems to mean that a characteristic is emergent or not depending on the 
theory and the part attributes considered. So based on this view any 
characteristic is emergent if one ignores all the part attributes. Is that a 
correct conclusion? Similarly no characteristic is emergent if one creates a 
theory that maps part attributes to it -- no matter how arbitrary and ad hoc 
that mapping may be.  Neither of these seem like very attractive positions. 
They make the notion of emergence subject to all sorts of manipulation.  

Or is the point simply to define the term "emergence" in terms of this sort of 
formalism? If that's the point, i.e., to define the term "emergence" formally 
like this, then what do they do with this definition once created?  Does this 
definition yield any insights, or is it just a definition?

-- Russ A




On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
wrote:

Glen,

My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what follows
is little more than spin.

In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list
of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part
attributes using that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is
only to say someth

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

I think they are trying to turn into a not-very-interesting characteristic.  
Like astronomy before Kepler.  Or whatever.  

Myself, I am a realist about emergence, or I aint interested in it. 

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group
Cc: Owen Densmore; Jim Gattiker; Frank Wimberly; Roger E Critchlow Jr; Chip 
Garner; maryl; nthompson
Sent: 10/5/2009 2:55:29 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence 
seminar: what's next?


Quoting Nick,


For [Hempel and Oppenheim], a characteristic of on object is emergent relative 
to a theory and relative to a particular list of part attributes when that 
characteristic cannot be deduced from the part attributes using that theory.  
So, to say that a property is emergent is only to say something about the state 
of our theory with respect to the data we have already gathered.


That seems to mean that a characteristic is emergent or not depending on the 
theory and the part attributes considered. So based on this view any 
characteristic is emergent if one ignores all the part attributes. Is that a 
correct conclusion? Similarly no characteristic is emergent if one creates a 
theory that maps part attributes to it -- no matter how arbitrary and ad hoc 
that mapping may be.  Neither of these seem like very attractive positions. 
They make the notion of emergence subject to all sorts of manipulation.  

Or is the point simply to define the term "emergence" in terms of this sort of 
formalism? If that's the point, i.e., to define the term "emergence" formally 
like this, then what do they do with this definition once created?  Does this 
definition yield any insights, or is it just a definition?

-- Russ A



On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
wrote:

Glen,

My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what follows
is little more than spin.

In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list
of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part
attributes using that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is
only to say something about the state of our theory with respect to the
data we have already gathered.

Dennett seems to come down in the middle of our distinction.  His argument
concerns what beliefs are REALLY.  His answer -- that beliefs are really
features of the world as seen from a point of view -- implies a position on
the nature of emergence.  Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede
that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE, if
you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ... it
may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is true
of the world.

A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and
the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett
is sounding awfully like a New Realist.

See you Thursday at 4pm.

Sorry for duplicate posting.

 N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 10/5/2009 9:38:53 AM
> Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?
>
>
> What's next on the reading list?
>
> --
> 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




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[glen e. p. ropella]

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09-10-05 01:00 PM:
> In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
> we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
> emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
> epistemological vs ontological distinction.

I think that's an insight that can't be ignored.

> Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede
> that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE, if
> you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ... it
> may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
> true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is true
> of the world.  

Thanks!

Risking an abuse of the rather strict thread control for this seminar,
I'll say that I'm very much in agreement with this position on
"emergence".  However, I'd stretch it just a tiny bit to include _any_
measure operator, not just a stance (a.k.a. point of view, perspective,
subject-sensitive perception, etc.).  The "looking through binoculars"
is a great example of a measurement operator.  But it's a subjective
measurement (an objective form of it would be the image projected onto a
piece of paper behind the binoculars).  There are, I posit, objective
measurements.  And _any_ inaccurate measurement will introduce just such
a stance, albeit objective.  Hence, as long as the measurements are used
in some sort of positive or negative feedback loop as part of the
mechanism of the system being measured, then it realizes ontological
complexity.  If, however, the measurements (the range of the operator)
are NOT part of the system's mechanism, then we merely have
epistemological complexity (if even that).  And for the sake of this
discussion, I'll posit that only complex systems exhibit emergence,
which means I basically agree with some of what Bedau says early on.

And to take it back to what I've actually read from the book, I can say
that Bedeau's constructions are _totally_ unsatisfying because he
doesn't explicitly treat the operators at all.  For example, he talks
about "gliders" as if we all grew a "glider-sensor" out of our forehead
... like an ear or an eyeball or something.  True, I know what he
_means_; but he glosses over the extreme difficulty of unambiguously
defining a measure operator to determine if some set of cells over time
is exhibiting a "glider" or not.  His text is chock full of such glossed
abstractions, which make it totally unusable to me.

And, by the way, why do we have to use the term "supervenience"?  Why
can't we just say the map between property sets A and B is surjective?
It's so much clearer than saying "B supervenes upon A" Sheesh. ;-)

-- 
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
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Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Russ Abbott]

g emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE,
>>> if
>>> you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ...
>>> it
>>> may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
>>> true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is
>>> true
>>> of the world.
>>>
>>> A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and
>>> the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett
>>> is sounding awfully like a New Realist.
>>>
>>> See you Thursday at 4pm.
>>>
>>> Sorry for duplicate posting.
>>>
>>>  N
>>>
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>>> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > [Original Message]
>>> > From: glen e. p. ropella 
>>> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> > Date: 10/5/2009 9:38:53 AM
>>> > Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > What's next on the reading list?
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>> 
>> 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
>>
>
>

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

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Roger Critchlow]

H&O are quite methodical: "emergence: The occurrence of a
characteristic *W*in an object
*w* is emergent relative to a theory *T*, a part relation *Pt*, and a class
*G* of attributes if that occurrence cannot be deduced by means of *T* from
a characterization of the *Pt*-parts of *w* with respect to all the
attributes in *G*."

I suspect that the proper characteristics of *T* are the treated in other
parts of Hempel's book, Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays
in the Philosophy of Science, so it isn't fair to assume that it's entirely
arbitrary and *ad hoc.*

However, the purpose of the definition is to exterminate emergence, it is a
temporary state of ignorance which will be remedied by an improved theory.
That the improved theory might be entirely stated in relations between
"emergent" ontologies -- eg molecules, cells, organisms, populations, etc --
is of no concern, they are no longer emergent if they're in the theory.

-- rec --

If it's in the theory, it's in the theory!

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Russ Abbott  wrote:

> Quoting Nick,
>
> For [Hempel and Oppenheim], a characteristic of on object is emergent
> relative to a theory and relative to a particular list of part attributes
> when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part attributes using
> that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is only to say
> something about the state of our theory with respect to the data we have
> already gathered.
>
> That seems to mean that a characteristic is emergent or not depending on
> the theory and the part attributes considered. So based on this view any
> characteristic is emergent if one ignores all the part attributes. Is that a
> correct conclusion? Similarly no characteristic is emergent if one creates a
> theory that maps part attributes to it -- no matter how arbitrary and *ad
> hoc* that mapping may be.  Neither of these seem like very attractive
> positions. They make the notion of emergence subject to all sorts of
> manipulation.
>
> Or is the point simply to define the term "emergence" in terms of this sort
> of formalism? If that's the point, i.e., to define the term "emergence"
> formally like this, then what do they do with this definition once created?
> Does this definition yield any insights, or is it just a definition?
>
> -- Russ A
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
> nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Glen,
>>
>> My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what
>> follows
>> is little more than spin.
>>
>> In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
>> we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
>> emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
>> epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
>> soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
>> object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list
>> of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the
>> part
>> attributes using that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is
>> only to say something about the state of our theory with respect to the
>> data we have already gathered.
>>
>> Dennett seems to come down in the middle of our distinction.  His argument
>> concerns what beliefs are REALLY.  His answer -- that beliefs are really
>> features of the world as seen from a point of view -- implies a position
>> on
>> the nature of emergence.  Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede
>> that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE,
>> if
>> you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ...
>> it
>> may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
>> true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is true
>> of the world.
>>
>> A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and
>> the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett
>> is sounding awfully like a New Realist.
>>
>> See you Thursday at 4pm.
>>
>> Sorry for duplicate posting.
>>
>>  N
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > [Original Message]
>> > From: glen e. p. ropella 
&

Re: [FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Russ Abbott]

Quoting Nick,

For [Hempel and Oppenheim], a characteristic of on object is emergent
relative to a theory and relative to a particular list of part attributes
when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part attributes using
that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is only to say
something about the state of our theory with respect to the data we have
already gathered.

That seems to mean that a characteristic is emergent or not depending on the
theory and the part attributes considered. So based on this view any
characteristic is emergent if one ignores all the part attributes. Is that a
correct conclusion? Similarly no characteristic is emergent if one creates a
theory that maps part attributes to it -- no matter how arbitrary and *ad
hoc* that mapping may be.  Neither of these seem like very attractive
positions. They make the notion of emergence subject to all sorts of
manipulation.

Or is the point simply to define the term "emergence" in terms of this sort
of formalism? If that's the point, i.e., to define the term "emergence"
formally like this, then what do they do with this definition once created?
Does this definition yield any insights, or is it just a definition?

-- Russ A


On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Glen,
>
> My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what follows
> is little more than spin.
>
> In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
> we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
> emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
> epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
> soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
> object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list
> of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part
> attributes using that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is
> only to say something about the state of our theory with respect to the
> data we have already gathered.
>
> Dennett seems to come down in the middle of our distinction.  His argument
> concerns what beliefs are REALLY.  His answer -- that beliefs are really
> features of the world as seen from a point of view -- implies a position on
> the nature of emergence.  Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede
> that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE, if
> you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ... it
> may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
> true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is true
> of the world.
>
> A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and
> the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett
> is sounding awfully like a New Realist.
>
> See you Thursday at 4pm.
>
> Sorry for duplicate posting.
>
>  N
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: glen e. p. ropella 
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> > Date: 10/5/2009 9:38:53 AM
> > Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?
> >
> >
> > What's next on the reading list?
> >
> > --
> > 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
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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

[FRIAM] EMERGENCE SEMINAR V: Dennett et al; WAS: emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Glen,

My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what follows
is little more than spin.  

In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature,
we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of
emergence that seems to endure more than a week:  that is the
epistemological vs ontological distinction.  Hempel and Oppenheim fall
soundly on the epistemological side.  For them, a characteristic of on
object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list
of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part
attributes using that theory.  So, to say that a property is emergent is
only to say something about the state of our theory with respect to the
data we have already gathered.  

Dennett seems to come down in the middle of our distinction.  His argument
concerns what beliefs are REALLY.  His answer -- that beliefs are really
features of the world as seen from a point of view -- implies a position on
the nature of emergence.  Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede
that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view a STANCE, if
you will.  But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ... it
may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is
true of the world.  In fact, every stance tells you something that is true
of the world.  

A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and
the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett
is sounding awfully like a New Realist.  

See you Thursday at 4pm.  

Sorry for duplicate posting. 

 N  

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 10/5/2009 9:38:53 AM
> Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?
>
>
> What's next on the reading list?
>
> -- 
> 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




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

Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?

[Russ Abbott]

You may be interested in the Appendix to my "Reductionist blind
spot<http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/4540/>"
paper, which reviews Dennet's paper.

-- Russ Abbott
_
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/



On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  Yeah.  Daniel Dennett.  What a let down.  N
>
>  Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
>  *From:* Roger Critchlow 
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> *Sent:* 10/5/2009 10:30:35 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?
>
> Bit of a let down.  Nick assigned Chapter 9, Daniel C Dennett, Real
> Patterns, and Chapter 2, Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, On the Idea of
> Emergence.
>
> Dennett's article was 25 pages originally, trimmed to 19 pages for the
> emergence collection, and I think they could have trimmed another 18.5 pages
> without losing much content.  The question, buried in much tangential
> content, is whether a perceived pattern can be real even if one is mistaken
> about the mechanism of the pattern's origin.
>
> Hempel and Oppenheim are the token logical positivists in the collection,
> though Wikipedia notes that Hempel preferred to call himself a "logical
> empiricist".  Their article is an awesome slapdown of "of the classical
> absolutistic doctrine of emergence".  That appears to refer to some British
> Emergentist ideas that McLaughlin didn't mention.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 9:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella <
> g...@agent-based-modeling.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> What's next on the reading list?
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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

Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Yeah.  Daniel Dennett.  What a let down.  N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Roger Critchlow 
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 10/5/2009 10:30:35 AM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?


Bit of a let down.  Nick assigned Chapter 9, Daniel C Dennett, Real Patterns, 
and Chapter 2, Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, On the Idea of Emergence.  

Dennett's article was 25 pages originally, trimmed to 19 pages for the 
emergence collection, and I think they could have trimmed another 18.5 pages 
without losing much content.  The question, buried in much tangential content, 
is whether a perceived pattern can be real even if one is mistaken about the 
mechanism of the pattern's origin.

Hempel and Oppenheim are the token logical positivists in the collection, 
though Wikipedia notes that Hempel preferred to call himself a "logical 
empiricist".  Their article is an awesome slapdown of "of the classical 
absolutistic doctrine of emergence".  That appears to refer to some British 
Emergentist ideas that McLaughlin didn't mention.

-- rec --


On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 9:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella 
 wrote:


What's next on the reading list?

--
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
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

Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?

[Roger Critchlow]

Bit of a let down.  Nick assigned Chapter 9, Daniel C Dennett, Real
Patterns, and Chapter 2, Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, On the Idea of
Emergence.

Dennett's article was 25 pages originally, trimmed to 19 pages for the
emergence collection, and I think they could have trimmed another 18.5 pages
without losing much content.  The question, buried in much tangential
content, is whether a perceived pattern can be real even if one is mistaken
about the mechanism of the pattern's origin.

Hempel and Oppenheim are the token logical positivists in the collection,
though Wikipedia notes that Hempel preferred to call himself a "logical
empiricist".  Their article is an awesome slapdown of "of the classical
absolutistic doctrine of emergence".  That appears to refer to some British
Emergentist ideas that McLaughlin didn't mention.

-- rec --

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 9:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella <
g...@agent-based-modeling.com> wrote:

>
> What's next on the reading list?
>
> --
> 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
>

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

Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?

[Owen Densmore]

On Oct 5, 2009, at 9:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:

What's next on the reading list?


Next Week's readings are Oppenheim and Hempel and Dennett.  Roger will  
present.


   -- Owen



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

[FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next?

[glen e. p. ropella]

What's next on the reading list?

-- 
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Just so long as you do the readings, Michel!  (;-})

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: michel bloch 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;Chip Garner;Frank Wimberly;Jim 
Gattiker;maryl;merle;nthompson;Owen Densmore;Roger E Critchlow 
Jr;friam@redfish.com
Sent: 10/1/2009 10:07:57 AM 
Subject: RE: Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence


I am sorry not to have been more active with the reading group but my return 
trip (25 hours door to door from Santa Fe to Lancester Hotel House in the UK) 
added to the jetlag was difficult for me; in addition I had to take care of 
many details which were waiting for my return. I remotely follow your mails.

Cordialement
Michel Bloch
  33(0)1 46 37 01 93
http://www.mountvernon.fr/Sciences_complexite.htm
  
 





De : Nicholas Thompson [mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net] 
Envoyé : mardi 29 septembre 2009 06:16
À : Chip Garner; Frank Wimberly; Jim Gattiker; maryl; merle; michel bloch; 
nthompson; Owen Densmore; Roger E Critchlow Jr; friam@redfish.com
Objet : Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence


 This week's reading is Mark Bedau's "Downward Casaton and Autonomy in Weak 
Emergence"  "Weak" emrgence, Bedau makes clear in a footnote, is the only 
emergence worth having.  It stands betwqeen "nomical emergence" (emergence in 
name only), which arises because the terms by which tha whole is described are 
incommensurate with the terms by which its parts are described, and "strong 
emergence",  which is said to have irreducible causal powers but which Bedau 
thinks is "scientifically irrelevant".  A property of a whole is weakly 
emergent if it cannot be derived from the properties of the parts except by 
simulation.  For Friam list members, Bedau's chapter may be the most 
interesting so far because it makes extensive use of examples from the 
complexity literature.   One problem we readers will have is deciding whether 
the designation "weak" refers to some distinct kinds of events in the world 
(and is therefore ontological) or whether it refers to the state of our 
explanatory skills (in which case it is epistemological).   The distinction is 
important because we might expect ontological distinctions to survive 
indefinitely, whereas epistemological ones should be eliminated with the 
progress of science.  Bedau seems to think his distinction is ontological, but 
his argument for that position seems a bit shabby.  

As before, we invite Friam readers to read along with us and to comment on this 
thread only if they have done the reading mentioned in the subject heading. 

Take care, everybody, 

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.114/2402 - Release Date: 09/29/09 
05:54:00
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence

[michel bloch]

I am sorry not to have been more active with the reading group but my return
trip (25 hours door to door from Santa Fe to Lancester Hotel House in the
UK) added to the jetlag was difficult for me; in addition I had to take care
of many details which were waiting for my return. I remotely follow your
mails.
 

Cordialement

Michel Bloch

  33(0)1 46 37 01 93

http://www.mountvernon.fr/Sciences_complexite.htm

  

 

 

  _  

De : Nicholas Thompson [mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net] 
Envoyé : mardi 29 septembre 2009 06:16
À : Chip Garner; Frank Wimberly; Jim Gattiker; maryl; merle; michel bloch;
nthompson; Owen Densmore; Roger E Critchlow Jr; friam@redfish.com
Objet : Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence




 This week's reading is Mark Bedau's "Downward Casaton and Autonomy in Weak
Emergence"  "Weak" emrgence, Bedau makes clear in a footnote, is the only
emergence worth having.  It stands betwqeen "nomical emergence" (emergence
in name only), which arises because the terms by which tha whole is
described are incommensurate with the terms by which its parts are
described, and "strong emergence",  which is said to have irreducible causal
powers but which Bedau thinks is "scientifically irrelevant".  A property of
a whole is weakly emergent if it cannot be derived from the properties of
the parts except by simulation.  For Friam list members, Bedau's chapter may
be the most interesting so far because it makes extensive use of examples
from the complexity literature.   One problem we readers will have is
deciding whether the designation "weak" refers to some distinct kinds of
events in the world (and is therefore ontological) or whether it refers to
the state of our explanatory skills (in which case it is epistemological).
The distinction is important because we might expect ontological
distinctions to survive indefinitely, whereas epistemological ones should be
eliminated with the progress of science.  Bedau seems to think his
distinction is ontological, but his argument for that position seems a bit
shabby.  
 
As before, we invite Friam readers to read along with us and to comment on
this thread only if they have done the reading mentioned in the subject
heading. 
 
Take care, everybody, 
 
Nick 
 
 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
 
 
 

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.114/2402 - Release Date: 09/29/09
05:54:00



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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar IV: Bedau on "Weak" Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

 This week's reading is Mark Bedau's "Downward Casaton and Autonomy in Weak 
Emergence"  "Weak" emrgence, Bedau makes clear in a footnote, is the only 
emergence worth having.  It stands betwqeen "nomical emergence" (emergence in 
name only), which arises because the terms by which tha whole is described are 
incommensurate with the terms by which its parts are described, and "strong 
emergence",  which is said to have irreducible causal powers but which Bedau 
thinks is "scientifically irrelevant".  A property of a whole is weakly 
emergent if it cannot be derived from the properties of the parts except by 
simulation.  For Friam list members, Bedau's chapter may be the most 
interesting so far because it makes extensive use of examples from the 
complexity literature.   One problem we readers will have is deciding whether 
the designation "weak" refers to some distinct kinds of events in the world 
(and is therefore ontological) or whether it refers to the state of our 
explanatory skills (in which case it is epistemological).   The distinction is 
important because we might expect ontological distinctions to survive 
indefinitely, whereas epistemological ones should be eliminated with the 
progress of science.  Bedau seems to think his distinction is ontological, but 
his argument for that position seems a bit shabby.  

As before, we invite Friam readers to read along with us and to comment on this 
thread only if they have done the reading mentioned in the subject heading. 

Take care, everybody, 

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Russ Abbott]

I'm not sure I get your point.  First of all, it's not a very deeply thought
out definition. As given, the example depends on subjective experience!
(Tastes salty) But even so, everything in the definition typically applies
to levels of abstraction as well as to the relational formalism I suggested.
I explicitly required that the B elements be composed of A elements. So
there's part-whole right there.

Your comment that " the emergentist tradition has a commitment to
ontological levels." is more to the point. But it has little to do with the
definition you cite as far as I can see. You had asked about a relation
between levels. So I defined one.  Implicit in the definition is the notion
that each level exists, i.e., is ontologically real. So I don't understand
what you see as missing.

In one of the messages to your smaller group I noted that the term *emergence
*itself adds to the confusion. It seems to imply that the emergent
phenomenon just happens, i.e., that there is no explanation for how it came
to be, how it came to emerge.  If you want to include such a "no
explanation" property explicitly in the notion of emergence, then emergence
does indeed become more mysterious -- by definition.

But in fact there are well understood mechanisms that lead to the creation
of emergent phenomena.  Salt didn't just happen to come into existence. Salt
exists for reasons explained by physics and chemistry.  (Furthermore salt
"tastes" salty is better understood to mean that a salt molecule fits the
salt receptors in tongue. Then there is no subjective experience aspect to
it.)

So I would watch out for smuggling in (and wanting to retain) a mystery
about how emergent phenomena come to be. I don't think you are going this
far, but it almost sounds like you are saying (or at least hoping) that if
it can be explained how an emergent phenomenon came about then it should no
longer be considered emergent. Do you want emergence to include in its
meaning that the emergent phenomenon just appeared (just emerged) with no
way to explain it?


-- Russ A



On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 2:01 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  Russ,
>
> this lead's us into the kind of territory that Owen Densmore would like to
> take us to formalism, mathematical formalism.  I hope he responds.
>
> It will require some careful study on my part, so I wont try a response
> now.
>
> But, in the spirit of duelling definitions, let me just site the
> philosphical dictionary's definition of  emergence.
>
>  *emergent property*
>
> An irreducible <http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r.htm#reduc> feature
> (now commonly called 
> supervenient<http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/s9.htm#supv>)
> of a complex whole that cannot be inferred directly from the features of its
> simpler parts. Thus, for example, the familiar taste of salt is an emergent
> property with respect to the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed.
> http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm#emrg with a nod to Garth Kemerling
>
> Note the explicit reference to the part/whole relation.  In general, the
> emergentist tradition has a committment to ontological levels.  In fact, it
> is meant to be an explanation of the existence of such levels.  that, of
> course, doesnt cover the emergence of a bean plant from its seed.I
> guess.
>
>  Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
>  *From:* Russ Abbott 
> *To: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group  *Cc: *Russell 
> Standish
> *Sent:* 9/27/2009 1:26:51 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
>
> Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship
> between levels, of some sort"?
>
> Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming 
> forth<http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=emergence>."
> That doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels.
>
> Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as
> a relationship between levels?
>
> All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a
> relationship between levels.
>
> Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a
> relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect
> emergence. For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level
> of) sticks paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks.
&

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

Russ, 

this lead's us into the kind of territory that Owen Densmore would like to take 
us to formalism, mathematical formalism.  I hope he responds.  

It will require some careful study on my part, so I wont try a response now.  

But, in the spirit of duelling definitions, let me just site the philosphical 
dictionary's definition of  emergence. 

emergent property 

An irreducible feature (now commonly called supervenient) of a complex whole 
that cannot be inferred directly from the features of its simpler parts. Thus, 
for example, the familiar taste of salt is an emergent property with respect to 
the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed.   
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e.htm#emrg with a nod to Garth Kemerling
Note the explicit reference to the part/whole relation.  In general, the 
emergentist tradition has a committment to ontological levels.  In fact, it is 
meant to be an explanation of the existence of such levels.  that, of course, 
doesnt cover the emergence of a bean plant from its seed.I guess.  

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group
Cc: Russell Standish
Sent: 9/27/2009 1:26:51 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle


Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship between 
levels, of some sort"?

Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming forth." That 
doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels. 

Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as a 
relationship between levels?

All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a 
relationship between levels. 

Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a 
relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect emergence. 
For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level of) sticks 
paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks. (This second 
level is defined deliberately narrowly. Is that a problem?)  Then it seems to 
make sense that that pair 


(level of sticks, level of stick triangles) 


is one element of the emergence relation.

With that in mind, here's a possible definition of emergence as a relation. 

Emergence (as a relation) is defined to be:

{(A, B) | A and B are levels, where a level is (at least) a set of elements & 
the elements in B have properties that the elements in A don't & 
the elements in B are composed of elements of A}

Is that a fair partial formalization of emergence as a relation(ship) between 
levels?

I'm not absolutely committed to it. I submit it as a draft definition. Does it 
work? It seems to work for sticks and stick triangles.


-- Russ A




On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Nicholas Thompson 
 wrote:

Nick Thompson wrote


> I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be
a
> property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent
> property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> arranged in a double helix".
>
> Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are

> formed in triangles  like saying that a ball rolls because it is round?
>
> You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers

> unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me in
> someway.
>

To which Russ Standish replied:


Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
really get your point, queer or no :(.


To which Nick Thompson Replies:

NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language.  I meant
"queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just
meant that I was "unsettled, confused."   Try to read around it.

NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote
again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship
between levels, of some sort,  doesn't saying that "a wooden construction
is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example?
Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong".

NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here?  For
instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably
"interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have
to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have
to talk about the relations

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Russ Abbott]

Why is it important to assume "that emergence involves a relationship
between levels, of some sort"?

Wordnet defines "emergence" as "the gradual beginning or coming
forth<http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=emergence>."
That doesn't necessarily imply a relatioship between levels.

Admittedly I haven't read the Wimsett article. Does he defined emergence as
a relationship between levels?

All that notwithstanding, here is an attempt to characterize emergence as a
relationship between levels.

Mathematically a relation is a set of pairs. So if emergence is a
relation(ship) it would be the set of pairs (of levels) that reflect
emergence. For example, one element in that set of pairs might be (the level
of) sticks paired with (the level of) triangles constructed out of sticks.
(This second level is defined deliberately narrowly. Is that a problem?)
Then it seems to make sense that that pair

(level of sticks, level of stick triangles)

is one element of the emergence relation.

With that in mind, here's a possible definition of emergence as a relation.

Emergence (as a relation) is defined to be:

{(A, B) | A and B are levels, where a level is (at least) a set of elements
&
the elements in B have properties that the elements in A don't &

the elements in B are composed of elements of A}

Is that a fair partial formalization of emergence as a relation(ship)
between levels?

I'm not absolutely committed to it. I submit it as a draft definition. Does
it work? It seems to work for sticks and stick triangles.


-- Russ A



On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Nick Thompson wrote
>
> > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be
> a
> > property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent
> > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> > arranged in a double helix".
> >
> > Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
> > formed in triangles  like saying that a ball rolls because it is round?
> >
> > You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
> > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me
> in
> > someway.
> >
> To which Russ Standish replied:
>
> Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
> really get your point, queer or no :(.
>
> To which Nick Thompson Replies:
>
> NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language.  I meant
> "queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just
> meant that I was "unsettled, confused."   Try to read around it.
>
> NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote
> again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship
> between levels, of some sort,  doesn't saying that "a wooden construction
> is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example?
> Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong".
>
> NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here?  For
> instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably
> "interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have
> to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have
> to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context.  (To
> demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to stress
> it.)   So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between two
> interlevel relationships.
>
> NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal
> emergence, which is in this week's reading?  Are you reading along with us?
> Wimsatt?  Searle?
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: russell standish 
> > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group 
> > Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > So, Russ S,
> > >
> > > when you say,
> > >
> > > "> I got lost at step 4 

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

Nick Thompson wrote

> I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be
a
> property of the macro entity. But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent
> property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> arranged in a double helix". 
> 
> Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
> formed in triangles  like saying that a ball rolls because it is round? 
> 
> You wouldn't be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
> unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me in
> someway. 
> 
To which Russ Standish replied:
 
Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
really get your point, queer or no :(.

To which Nick Thompson Replies:

NST-->I apologize for using irrelevantly evocative language.  I meant
"queer" literally: "odd, unsettling", and by "knickers in a twist" I just
meant that I was "unsettled, confused."   Try to read around it.  

NST-->However, please could you look at the substance of what I wrote
again? ASSUMING that one believes that emergence involves a relationship
between levels, of some sort,  doesn't saying that "a wooden construction
is strong because its members are formed in triangles" fail as an example? 
Since "formed in triangles" is at the same level as "strong".  

NST-->Or is the concept of level cracking under the weight, here?  For
instance, notice that BOTH "strong" and "formed in triangles" are arguably
"interlevel properties", since to talk about "formed in triangles" you have
to talk about the level of components and to talk about "strong" you have
to talk about the relationship between the whole and its context.  (To
demonstrate that something is strong, something outside of it has to stress
it.)   So "strong because triangles" is actually a relationship between two
interlevel relationships.  

NST-->Your comments focus our attention on Bedau's concept of nominal
emergence, which is in this week's reading?  Are you reading along with us?
Wimsatt?  Searle?   

Nick 





Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: russell standish 
> To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group 
> Date: 9/27/2009 10:44:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
>
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > So, Russ S, 
> > 
> > when you say, 
> > 
> > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence."
> > 
> > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is
actually a
> > relationship between two different properties of the same object. 
> > 
>
> Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the
> presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language
> that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally
> say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term
> for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other
> Russ's eyebrows.
>
> > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to
be a
> > property of the macro entity.  But in this case, the CAUSE of the
emergent
> > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> > arranged in a double helix".  
> > 
> >  Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
> > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is
round?  
> > 
> > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
> > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me
in
> > someway.  
> > 
>
> Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
> really get your point, queer or no :(.
>
> > NIck 
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
> > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > [Original Message]
> > > From: russell standish 
> > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied
Complexity
> > Coffee Group 
> > > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM
> > &g

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Russ Abbott]

It's been my position for a while that one of the misleading issues with
emergence is that (as Russ S) says the emergent properties are simply not
expressible in the language one uses to describe the micro elements.  To
take Fodor's original example again, there is no way to talk about Gresham's
law (bad money drives out good) in the language of quantum mechanics --
because quantum mechanics doesn't have the concept of money, good or bad.

If you want to call that incommensurability or lexical mismatch, I guess
that's ok -- although I would recommend that one explain the problem rather
than just labeling it.

(It never was clear to me whether this was what Glen was getting at. We had
a long private exchange and still didn't clear it up.)

As you have heard me say before, the problem arises because a new level of
abstraction creates and makes use of concepts that don't exist at the
implementing level. That too is a fairly standard idea in computer science,
although the concept of level of abstraction may not be as familiar to those
outside our field. (This is Gutag's original 1997
article<http://rockfish.cs.unc.edu/204/guttagADT77.pdf%20>.
This is the most relevant Wikipedia
article<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_layer>.
This is the NIST
page<http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/sqg/dads/HTML/abstractDataType.html>.
This is how 
Encyclopedia.com<http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O11-abstractdatatype.html>describes
it. This is
Dictionary.com's<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abstract%20data%20type>definition.)

So basically, the problem is less linguistic than ontological. There are new
data types (e.g., money). That is an ontological issue. Money as an
ontological category does not exist at the level of quantum mechanics.

Of course one wants to talk about those new data types and their properties.
The language one uses (to talk about,e.g., money) is necessarily different
from the language one uses in describing the elements used to implement
those new data type (e.g., the language of quantum mechanics).

Perhaps more importantly, the new data types are defined independently of
their implementation. That was the original point of Guttag's article,
namely that the properties of stacks, lists, etc. can be specified without
having to talk about any particular implementation -- and in fact that there
can be multiple implementations, all of which will produce stacks, etc. that
satisfy the direct, high level (if Glen won't object to my using the term
"level") description.

-- Russ A



On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 1:44 AM, russell standish wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > So, Russ S,
> >
> > when you say,
> >
> > "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> > > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> > > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence."
> >
> > Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually
> a
> > relationship between two different properties of the same object.
> >
>
> Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the
> presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language
> that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally
> say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term
> for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other
> Russ's eyebrows.
>
> > I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be
> a
> > property of the macro entity.  But in this case, the CAUSE of the
> emergent
> > property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> > arranged in a double helix".
> >
> >  Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
> > formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round?
> >
> > You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
> > unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me
> in
> > someway.
> >
>
> Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
> really get your point, queer or no :(.
>
> > NIck
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > [Original Message]
> > > From: russell standish 
> > > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied
> Complexity

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[russell standish]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 01:24:47AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> So, Russ S, 
> 
> when you say, 
> 
> "> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence."
> 
> Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a
> relationship between two different properties of the same object. 
> 

Not exactly. It is more a relationship between languages. It is the
presence of a property (the emergent one) expressed in one language
that is impossible to express in the other language. We would normally
say the languages are incommensurate, although Glen used a neat term
for it the other day starting with "lexical" that raised the other
Russ's eyebrows.

> I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a
> property of the macro entity.  But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent
> property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
> arranged in a double helix".  
> 
>  Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
> formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round?  
> 
> You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
> unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me in
> someway.  
> 

Um, well, maybe you are getting your knickers in a twist. I don't
really get your point, queer or no :(.

> NIck 
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > [Original Message]
> > From: russell standish 
> > To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group 
> > Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > All, 
> > > 
> > > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two
> > > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of
> > > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on
> the
> > > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. 
> > > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. 
> > > 
> > > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his
> > > position.  
> > > 
> > > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro
> and
> > > micro entities.  (I suppose somebody might challange that statement,
> but I
> > > dont think anybody has so far.)
> > > 
> > > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant
> on
> > > the arrangement of the micro entities.  
> > > 
> > > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity
> > > (duh!). 
> > > 
> > > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a
> definition
> > > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among
> levels. 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Back to the old drawing board.  
> > > 
> > > n 
> > > 
> >
> > I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> > that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> > this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence.
> >
> > -- 
> >
> >
> 
> > Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> > Mathematics  
> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
> > Australiahttp://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

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Australiahttp://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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

So, Russ S, 

when you say, 

"> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence."

Does that mean that you are comfortable saying that emergence is actually a
relationship between two different properties of the same object. 

I agree that the emergent property ... "being a copying device" has to be a
property of the macro entity.  But in this case, the CAUSE of the emergent
property is also an emergent property, i.e., "being composed of parts
arranged in a double helix".  

 Is saying that a wooden construction is strong because its members are
formed in triangles is like saying that a ball rolls because it is round?  

You wouldnt be the first Russ to say that I am getting my knickers
unnecessarily twisted over this, but it does seem  queer  to me in
someway.  

NIck 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: russell standish 
> To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group 
> Date: 9/26/2009 8:35:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
>
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > All, 
> > 
> > As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two
> > readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of
> > emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on
the
> > arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. 
> > Unfortunately, I read it a third time. 
> > 
> > I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his
> > position.  
> > 
> > (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro
and
> > micro entities.  (I suppose somebody might challange that statement,
but I
> > dont think anybody has so far.)
> > 
> > (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant
on
> > the arrangement of the micro entities.  
> > 
> > (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity
> > (duh!). 
> > 
> > (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a
definition
> > of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among
levels. 
> > 
> > 
> > Back to the old drawing board.  
> > 
> > n 
> > 
>
> I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
> that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
> this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence.
>
> -- 
>
>

> Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052   hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
> Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au
>





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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[russell standish]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:50:53PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> All, 
> 
> As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two
> readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of
> emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on the
> arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. 
> Unfortunately, I read it a third time. 
> 
> I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his
> position.  
> 
> (1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro and
> micro entities.  (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, but I
> dont think anybody has so far.)
> 
> (2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant on
> the arrangement of the micro entities.  
> 
> (3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity
> (duh!). 
> 
> (4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a definition
> of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among levels. 
> 
> 
> Back to the old drawing board.  
> 
> n 
> 

I got lost at step 4 here. The obvious syllogism of (1), (2) & (3) is
that an emergent property is not a property of a micro entity. But
this doesn't surprise me, as its actually my definition of emergence.

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au



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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

As you all may remember, I had decided on the basis of my first two
readings of Wimsatt, that his was the final word on the definition of
emergence: a property of a macro-entity is emergent when it depends on the
arrangement of the micro entities [in time and/or in space]. 
Unfortunately, I read it a third time. 

I woke up in the middle of the night realizing what was wrong with his
position.  

(1) Ineliminably, emergence has to do with the relation between macro and
micro entities.  (I suppose somebody might challange that statement, but I
dont think anybody has so far.)

(2) Emergent properties of a macro entity are those that are dependant on
the arrangement of the micro entities.  

(3) But "An arrangement of X's" cannot be a property of any microentity
(duh!). 

(4) There fore, whatever (2) IS a definition of, it cannot be a definition
of emergence OR emergence does not have to do with relations among levels. 


Back to the old drawing board.  

n 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




>
>
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Nicholas Thompson
>  wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS. 
The
> > readings are Searle's   REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF
CONSCIOUSNESS
> > and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE
both
> > from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE.
> >
> > I think the chief challange of our discussions will be trying to figure
out
> > the degree to which the two authors agree.  I was startled on second
reading
> > at the degree to which they agree on what constitutes emergence.
> >
> > SEARLE "...some other system features cannot be figured out just from
the
> > compositoin of the elements and environmental relationws; they have to
be
> > explained in terms of the causal interactions among the elements.  Let's
> > call these 'causally emergent system features.'"
> >
> > WIMSAT " An emergent property is --roughly-- a system property which is
> > dependent upon the mode of organization of the system's parts".
> >
> > These two definitions are by no means the same, but both allow for
emergence
> > to be a common place.
> >
> >  The two seem also to have similar views of what constitutes reduction.
> > Searle goes to the trouble to explicate five different kinds of
reduction,
> > but in the end, he lights on "causal reduction", in part because it
often
> > leads to the other kinds.
> >
> > SEARLE :  A causal reduction has taken place when "the causal powers of
the
> > reduced entity [i.e., the macro-level entity] are shown to be entirely
> > explainable in thers of the causal powers of the reducing phenomena
[i.e.,
> > the micro-level phenomena]"  Odd that he changes from entity to
phenomena in
> > mid definition, but I am supposed to be avoiding editorial comment here.
> >
> > WIMSAT:   a reductive explanation of a behavior or a property of a
> > system is one showing it to be mechanistically explainable in terms of
the
> > properties of and interactions among the parts of the system."  A lot
would
> > seem to hang on the word "mechanistically" here, so I looked it up in
web
> > dictionary of philosophical terms. maintained by garth kemerling:
> >
> > mechanism
> >
> > Belief that science can explain all natural phenomena in terms of the
causal
> > interactions among material particles, without any reference to
intelligent
> > agency or purpose. As employed by Descartes and Hobbes, mechanism
offered an
> > alternative to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to final
> > causes.
> >
> > Is there anybody out there who is reading along with us
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 
> > 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
> >




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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence.

[Steve Smith]

Owen Densmore wrote:
[Note: the thread got broken so I'm deliberately starting a new one 
that hopefully keeps both its new thread ID header and its old subject 
line.  Anyone not understanding thread breaking and thread highjacking 
can ask and I'd describe the technical details.]
Yes, but can you weave a sweater out of these threads?  And if we wake 
up one day and realize that the FRIAM list has actually spontaneously 
*become* a sweater, would we call it Emergence?


> I'd like to take the thread back for its original purpose, OK?

I think I'm channeling Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams here... sorry.

Carry on!
- Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence.

[Owen Densmore]

[Note: the thread got broken so I'm deliberately starting a new one  
that hopefully keeps both its new thread ID header and its old subject  
line.  Anyone not understanding thread breaking and thread highjacking  
can ask and I'd describe the technical details.]


I'd like to take the thread back for its original purpose, OK?

The idea of the seminar is simple: we're trying to *understand* the  
various authors in the book.  Not to belittle them or the concept.


I started out quite skeptical .. I really think there is a good  
definition of Emergence but that these guys hadn't a change in hell of  
stating it.  And yes, I believe it to lie within the domain of  
mathematics.


But, mainly due to good will of the participants and skillful  
management by Nick who's done this for ages, I find I'm enjoying the  
seminar very much.  Better yet, we're getting some traction how *we'd*  
like to define Emergence, at least in the much less limited domain of  
"complexity".


If Friamers would like to read along, we have a digital version you  
can use to see if you'd like to plunge in, get the book, and discuss  
the week's reading.


Our last week's reading was two chapters, Searle and Wimsatt:
Ch 3 Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness John Searle
Ch 5 Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence William  
C. Wimsatt

Frank W read/presented the first, I did the second.

Next week is:
Ch 8 Downward Causation and Autonomy in Weak Emergence Mark A. Bedau
..presented by Chip Garner.

-- Owen


On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:



Dear All,

We had a good meeting, at least 8 of us, even tho we lost Michel,  
who went back to Paris.  The first time it didnt actually RAIN  
duirng the meeting, so we were able to sit outside.


For next week we will be reading the  Mark Bedau chapter on weak  
emergence.  I think I have already established that Bedau has a pdf  
of a version of this article on his website.  Ping me if you need a  
better reference.


At least one person has promised to join us from the diaspora.

Please put discussion of this chapter -- and ONLY discussion of this  
chapter -- in this thread.


Nick



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[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, IV; Bedau on weak emergence.

[Nicholas Thompson]

Dear All, 

We had a good meeting, at least 8 of us, even tho we lost Michel, who went back 
to Paris.  The first time it didnt actually RAIN duirng the meeting, so we were 
able to sit outside.  

For next week we will be reading the  Mark Bedau chapter on weak emergence.  I 
think I have already established that Bedau has a pdf of a version of this 
article on his website.  Ping me if you need a better reference. 

At least one person has promised to join us from the diaspora.  

Please put discussion of this chapter -- and ONLY discussion of this chapter -- 
in this thread.  

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

Great, Glen, 

I will set up a thread, Emergence Seminar,  IV: Chapter 8, Bedau.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 9/24/2009 7:04:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle
>
> Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/23/2009 08:33 PM:
> > the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS. 
The readings are Searle's   REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF
CONSCIOUSNESS
> > and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE
both from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE.  
>
> Yay!  I finally got my copy.  Next week I'll be able to yap at y'all in
> context. ;-)
>
> -- 
> 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




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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[glen e. p. ropella]

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/23/2009 08:33 PM:
> the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS.  The 
> readings are Searle's   REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
> and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both 
> from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE.  

Yay!  I finally got my copy.  Next week I'll be able to yap at y'all in
context. ;-)

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com



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[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar, III: Wimsatt and Searle

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

the third meeting of the emergence seminar is tomorrow at 4pm at DS.  The 
readings are Searle's   REDUCTIONISM AND THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
and wimsatt's AGREGATIVITY: REDUCTIVE HEURISTICS FOR FINDING EMERGENCE both 
from Bedau and Humphreys, EMERGENCE.  

I think the chief challange of our discussions will be trying to figure out the 
degree to which the two authors agree.  I was startled on second reading at the 
degree to which they agree on what constitutes emergence.  

SEARLE "...some other system features cannot be figured out just from the 
compositoin of the elements and environmental relationws; they have to be 
explained in terms of the causal interactions among the elements.  Let's call 
these 'causally emergent system features.'"

WIMSAT " An emergent property is --roughly-- a system property which is 
dependent upon the mode of organization of the system's parts".   

These two definitions are by no means the same, but both allow for emergence to 
be a common place.  

 The two seem also to have similar views of what constitutes reduction.  Searle 
goes to the trouble to explicate five different kinds of reduction, but in the 
end, he lights on "causal reduction", in part because it often leads to the 
other kinds.  

SEARLE :  A causal reduction has taken place when "the causal powers of the 
reduced entity [i.e., the macro-level entity] are shown to be entirely 
explainable in thers of the causal powers of the reducing phenomena [i.e., the 
micro-level phenomena]"  Odd that he changes from entity to phenomena in mid 
definition, but I am supposed to be avoiding editorial comment here.  

WIMSAT:   a reductive explanation of a behavior or a property of a system 
is one showing it to be mechanistically explainable in terms of the properties 
of and interactions among the parts of the system."  A lot would seem to hang 
on the word "mechanistically" here, so I looked it up in web dictionary of 
philosophical terms. maintained by garth kemerling:  

mechanism 
Belief that science can explain all natural phenomena in terms of the causal 
interactions among material particles, without any reference to intelligent 
agency or purpose. As employed by Descartes and Hobbes, mechanism offered an 
alternative to the scholastic reliance on explanatory appeals to final causes. 
Is there anybody out there who is reading along with us

Nick  


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence

[Roger Critchlow]

Maybe we should read Mill, the chapter on the composition of causes is
only 5 pages:

  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27942/27942-h/27942-h.html#toc53

-- rec --

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson
 wrote:
> The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number.
>
> I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize
> what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was
> accomplished for me.  I hope others in the group will correct me,
> particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our
> reading  from afar.
>
> McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19
> century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry,
> etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces.   When we
> explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the
> molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that
> arise from the configuration of the particles.  Elementary Newtonian forces
> are all we need.  But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the
> Emergentists.  After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of
> the composition of causes.  Presumably all forces are in some sense causes,
> but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces.   Returning to my
> example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the
> strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the
> parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces,&n bsp; no
> "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".  On the other hand, if you
> would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you
> better get at least one triangle into it.  In that sense, the triangular
> configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural
> rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the
> rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause.  In short, McLaughlin does
> not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all
> that is needed for a robust emergentism.
>
> Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>


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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, Searle and Wimsatt

[Russ Abbott]

Well, you already know my position on reducibility, namely that it's a
mistaken quest. Everything -- other than whatever turns out to be primitive,
if indeed anything turns out to be primitive -- is explainable. That is, we
will eventually figure out how it is implemented. But implementation is
generally not what people think of as reducibility.

Of course that answer ignores the specific question of subjective experience
-- which may be what Nick had in mind when he thought about me.

-- Russ-A



On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  All,
>
> For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism
> and the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity:
> Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence).   I originally thought we would
> do only Searle, forgetting how short it was.  We need to do more than ten
> pages a week if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks.
>
> Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of
> hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for
> all of my thinking about emergence).  My philosophical mentors tell me that
> they both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any
> subject and any respect that I might earn with my mentors  from liking
> Wimsatt is countered by my disparagement of Searle.The Searle article
> will grist in the mill of those of you who feel that consciousness is
> something special and the Wimsatt article grist in the mill of those of you
> who feel that emergence is commonplace.
>
>  I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration  of these
> texts..  Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt
> Russ Abbot:t
>
> "I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary
> processes produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining
> subjective conscious states.  But ... once the existence of (subjective,
> qualitative) consciousness is granted (and no sane person can deny its
> existence, though many pretend to do so), then there is nothing strange,
> wonderful, or mysterious about its irreducibility.  "
>
> All the best,
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Russ, inter alia, 

The emergentists liked, we are told, to rail against the reification of causes. 
 Cause is, after all, just a name for the fact that y usually follows x AND 
that contingency fits with some ontology we share about how the world works.  I 
have been punished for thinking in my [metaphorical] head whenever people say x 
causes y that x forces y, so I am feeling cautious about causality right now.  

But still, what words are we going to substitute?  That wasnt a rhetorical 
question.  What words ARE we going to substitute?  

thanks for your comments, 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group
Sent: 9/17/2009 10:27:51 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence


It seems to me that "cause" is an extraordinarily slippery word. I'm involved 
with a group of people who are looking into "Causality in Complex Systems." One 
of the things I did while in Australia this summer was attend one or our 
workshops.  After thinking quite a bit about causality and after arguing with a 
professional Philosopher about what philosophers mean by causality, I've 
decided to give up using that term.  Instead, what I'm interested in are 
explanations. Even that is a difficult term to define clearly. But it seems a 
lot less dangerous than causality. 

Nick can explain why a triangle is rigid -- although I am taken by the notion 
of an "elan triangulaire". But to come up with a "cause" for the rigidity of a 
triangle? In my view that's just asking for trouble.

It's important to acknowledge, though, that Nick's explanation will presumably 
be predicated on the presumption that the each of the one-by-two sides is 
itself rigid. What about explaining that? (That's another example of how 
levevls of abstraction build on other levels of abstraction.)

-- Russ_A




On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
wrote:

The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number.  

I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize what 
we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was accomplished for 
me.  I hope others in the group will correct me, particularly any who are not 
in Santa FE but who have joined us in our reading  from afar.   

McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 
century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, etc., 
demonstrated that there were no configurational forces.   When we explain the 
properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the molecules, electrons 
etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that arise from the 
configuration of the particles.  Elementary Newtonian forces are all we need.  
But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the Emergentists.  After 
all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of the composition of 
causes.  Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, but nobody has yet 
asserted that all causes are forces.   Returning to my example of the triangle 
made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the strength of the triangle (by 
comparison with the relative weakness of the parallelogram), we need not appeal 
to any special forces,  no "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".  
On the other hand, if you would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos 
that is strong, you better get at least one triangle into it.  In that sense, 
the triangular configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the 
structural rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE 
of the rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause.  In short, McLaughlin 
does not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all 
that is needed for a robust emergentism.   

Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. 

Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/





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
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, Searle and Wimsatt

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

For those who are following the seminar, we will read Searle (Reductionism and 
the Irreducibility of Consciousness) and Wimsatt (Aggregativity: Reductive 
Heuristics for Finding Emergence).   I originally thought we would do only 
Searle, forgetting how short it was.  We need to do more than ten pages a week 
if are going to make any headway in the book in 13 weeks.  

Just by way of introduction, I hate the Searle (which I think is a pile of 
hopeless blather) and love the Wimsatt (which has become the foundation for all 
of my thinking about emergence).  My philosophical mentors tell me that they 
both are among the finest philosophers that we might read on any subject and 
any respect that I might earn with my mentors  from liking Wimsatt is countered 
by my disparagement of Searle.The Searle article will grist in the mill of 
those of you who feel that consciousness is something special and the Wimsatt 
article grist in the mill of those of you who feel that emergence is 
commonplace.  

 I wish I could draw more of you on the list into an exploration  of these 
texts..  Here, for instance, is a snippet from the Searle article to tempt Russ 
Abbot:t

"I think ... that we ought to be amazed by the fact that evolutionary processes 
produced nervous systems capable of causing and sustaining subjective conscious 
states.  But ... once the existence of (subjective, qualitative) consciousness 
is granted (and no sane person can deny its existence, though many pretend to 
do so), then there is nothing strange, wonderful, or mysterious about its 
irreducibility.  "

All the best, 

Nick 




Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence

[Russ Abbott]

It seems to me that "cause" is an extraordinarily slippery word. I'm
involved with a group of people who are looking into "Causality in Complex
Systems."
One of the things I did while in Australia this summer was attend one or our
workshops.  After thinking quite a bit about causality and after arguing
with a professional Philosopher about what philosophers mean by causality,
I've decided to give up using that term.  Instead, what I'm interested in
are explanations. Even that is a difficult term to define clearly. But it
seems a lot less dangerous than *causality*.

Nick can *explain *why a triangle is rigid -- although I am taken by the
notion of an "elan triangulaire". But to come up with a "cause" for the
rigidity of a triangle? In my view that's just asking for trouble.

It's important to acknowledge, though, that Nick's explanation will
presumably be predicated on the presumption that the each of the one-by-two
sides is itself rigid. What about explaining that? (That's another example
of how levevls of abstraction build on other levels of abstraction.)

-- Russ_A



On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number.
>
> I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize
> what we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was
> accomplished for me.  I hope others in the group will correct me,
> particularly any who are not in Santa FE but who have joined us in our
> reading  from afar.
>
> McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19
> century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry,
> etc., demonstrated that there were no configurational forces.   When we
> explain the properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the
> molecules, electrons etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that
> arise from the configuration of the particles.  Elementary Newtonian forces
> are all we need.  But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the
> Emergentists.  After all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of
> the composition of causes.  Presumably all forces are in some sense causes,
> but nobody has yet asserted that all causes are forces.   Returning to my
> example of the triangle made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the
> strength of the triangle (by comparison with the relative weakness of the
> parallelogram), we need not appeal to any special forces,  no "triangular
> stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".  On the other hand, if you would make
> a structure with hinges and one-by-twos that is strong, you better get at
> least one triangle into it.  In that sense, the triangular configuration of
> the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the structural rigidity (and
> perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE of the rigidity., in
> any sense that I understand cause.  In short, McLaughlin does not deny the
> existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all that is needed
> for a robust emergentism.
>
> Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar II, British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

The seminar met this afternoon, now eight in number.  

I would like to think that I were the sort of person who could summarize what 
we accomplished, but alas, I am not, so let me share what was accomplished for 
me.  I hope others in the group will correct me, particularly any who are not 
in Santa FE but who have joined us in our reading  from afar.   

McLaughlin asserts that B.E. was a possible scientific position in the 19 
century but came to an end because quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, etc., 
demonstrated that there were no configurational forces.   When we explain the 
properties of H20 on the basis of the properties of the molecules, electrons 
etc. that make it up we need invoke no new FORCES that arise from the 
configuration of the particles.  Elementary Newtonian forces are all we need.  
But I ended up wondering if all of this was fair to the Emergentists.  After 
all, Mill spoke not of the composition of forces but of the composition of 
causes.  Presumably all forces are in some sense causes, but nobody has yet 
asserted that all causes are forces.   Returning to my example of the triangle 
made of hinges and one-by-two's, to explain the strength of the triangle (by 
comparison with the relative weakness of the parallelogram), we need not appeal 
to any special forces,  no "triangular stubbornness" or "elan triangulaire".  
On the other hand, if you would make a structure with hinges and one-by-twos 
that is strong, you better get at least one triangle into it.  In that sense, 
the triangular configuration of the wood pieces is a necessary condition of the 
structural rigidity (and perhaps a sufficient one as well?) and hence a CAUSE 
of the rigidity., in any sense that I understand cause.  In short, McLaughlin 
does not deny the existence of configurational CAUSES and such causes are all 
that is needed for a robust emergentism.   

Again, I long for comments from others who have read this article. 

Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hey, folks.  I am trying to keep this thread for discussions of
MacLaughlin's chapter.  
You want to talk about realism/idealism, get your own damn thread. 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: russell standish 
> To: ; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group 
> Date: 9/17/2009 1:37:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
>
> Meaning is definitely there. From the meaning that humans give the the
> biological world: ever noticed how there are many words for some
> species (eg dogs or horses), but hardly any covering other major groups of
> species (eg ants or beetles). Where there are explicit distinctions
> made, there tends to be meaning, whether beneficial or pest.
>
> Of course there is biological meaning to most species, albeit not so
> sophisticated. Most species will classify others into friend, foe or
> neutral, for instance.
>
> One of the biggest meanings is self-meaning. I am because I can
> be. This leads to heritable qualities, which is the raw stuff of
> evolution. Without meaning, there is no evolution - just random drift,
> or noise. Without meaning, there is no complexity or emergence either.
>
> Sorry I don't have to time to say more, and I'm sure there are others
> who can put it more eloquently. It is one of the strands of my book
> "Theory of Nothing", but not a major focus of it.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02:04PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote:
> > Dear Russ S,
> > 
> > I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are
structured
> > in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that?
> > 
> > -- Russ A
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish
wrote:
> > 
> > > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
> > > :). Serves me right, I guess.
> > >
> > > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
> > > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
> > > something to somebody.
> > >
> > > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
> > > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
> > > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
> > > system arranged completely at random).
> > >
> > > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
> > > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
> > > extended to others.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > > 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 (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > > >
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlin
k.net/%7Enickthompson/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
glob

Re: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: {give me back my damned thread}

[Owen Densmore]

.. and if you'd like to talk and don't have the book, here's the  
chapter:

  http://backspaces.net/temp/BritEmergentism.pdf

-- Owen


On Sep 16, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
... will meet at downtown subscription, thursday, at 4pm to discuss  
McLaughlin's Rise and Fall of British Emergentism.  Anybody is  
welcome to sit in, but if you havent read the article, you cant talk  
for the first 45 minutes.


n


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[russell standish]

Meaning is definitely there. From the meaning that humans give the the
biological world: ever noticed how there are many words for some
species (eg dogs or horses), but hardly any covering other major groups of
species (eg ants or beetles). Where there are explicit distinctions
made, there tends to be meaning, whether beneficial or pest.

Of course there is biological meaning to most species, albeit not so
sophisticated. Most species will classify others into friend, foe or
neutral, for instance.

One of the biggest meanings is self-meaning. I am because I can
be. This leads to heritable qualities, which is the raw stuff of
evolution. Without meaning, there is no evolution - just random drift,
or noise. Without meaning, there is no complexity or emergence either.

Sorry I don't have to time to say more, and I'm sure there are others
who can put it more eloquently. It is one of the strands of my book
"Theory of Nothing", but not a major focus of it.

Cheers

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:02:04PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote:
> Dear Russ S,
> 
> I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured
> in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that?
> 
> -- Russ A
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish 
> wrote:
> 
> > Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
> > :). Serves me right, I guess.
> >
> > I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
> > structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
> > something to somebody.
> >
> > And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
> > complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
> > and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
> > system arranged completely at random).
> >
> > While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
> > calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
> > extended to others.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > 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 (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/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 

[FRIAM] emergence seminar: {give me back my damned thread}

[Nicholas Thompson]

.. will meet at downtown subscription, thursday, at 4pm to discuss McLaughlin's 
Rise and Fall of British Emergentism.  Anybody is welcome to sit in, but if you 
havent read the article, you cant talk for the first 45 minutes.  

n


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Russ Abbott]

Dear Russ S,

I'm not sure I follow the meaning point. Biological organisms are structured
in important (emergent) ways, but how do you attach meaning to that?

-- Russ A



On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:55 PM, russell standish wrote:

> Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
> :). Serves me right, I guess.
>
> I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
> structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
> something to somebody.
>
> And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
> complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
> and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
> system arranged completely at random).
>
> While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
> calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
> extended to others.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > 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 (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/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 
> 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 bette

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[russell standish]

Oh, dear, it seems I've been relegated to the Russ II position now
:). Serves me right, I guess.

I still think meaning is essential. The reason why something is
structured rather than unstructured is that the structure means
something to somebody.

And for measuring this, I don't think we can go past informational
complexity, which is really the difference in entropy of a system
and its maximal possible entropy (the entropy of just the parts of the
system arranged completely at random).

While its a bugger to use, being horribly NP-complete in general to
calculate, it can be done for some systems, and with ingenuity
extended to others.

Cheers

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:30:52PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> 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 (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> 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  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.
> 
>

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

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 (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
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  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 su

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Russ Abbott]

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.

   1. 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.)
   2. 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.)
   3. 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.)
   4. 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  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
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Dear Russ II, 

One of the things I hope to find out by discussing actual texts is whether
it IS the same as vitalism.  I don't think so.  Another reason to spend a
week on the british emergentists is because of their partial ressemblence
to Authors like Juarerro and Rosen whom some of us do take seriously.  

It's hard to believe in top-down causality without endorsing many of the
positions taken by these folks.  

And, remember, we are only spending a week on the B.E's; next week it's on
to John Searle!

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




> [Original Message]
> From: russell standish 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> Date: 9/15/2009 5:39:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
>
> >From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the
> same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very
> "configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by
> emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is
> used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole
> professional life.
>
> It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely
> rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as
> complexity researchers, would we be interested in that?
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> > As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
> > are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
> > to emergent or resultant rule sets.
> > 
> > The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set.  They
> > believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
> > of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
> > it.  They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
> > answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
> > than emergent principles of chemistry.  They also bet that the variety
> > of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
> > according to the chemistry they knew.  And they were right again, it
> > wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
> > result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
> > of biology.
> > 
> > Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
> > configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
> > operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
> > statistical mechanics.  It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
> > same laws, no emergent forces.  There are configuration forces, but
> > they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
> > packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
> > complicated configurations of nuclei.
> > 
> > The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
> > last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
> > inheritance.
> > 
> > But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum.  The Emergentists,
> > as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
> > configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
> > chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
> > happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
> > distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
> > electrons in the physics lab.  But it all turned out to be part of the
> > resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
> > Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
> > one sense they really cared about.
> > 
> > -- rec --
> > 
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
> >  wrote:
> > > All,
> > >
> > > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter
we are
> > > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central
assertions
> > > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists
out of
> > > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes
on to
> > > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s]
the
> > > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> > > concerned, seem enormously implausible.&

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Owen Densmore]

[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



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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[russell standish]

>From the text below, it is apparent that British emergence is not the
same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very
"configurational forces" you mention are precisely what I mean by
emergent phenomena, which is entirely consistent with how the term is
used in the complex systems literature that I have been reading my whole
professional life.

It would seem that "British emergence" is something akin to the widely
rejected notion of vitalism, and as Russ Abbott states - why, as
complexity researchers, would we be interested in that?

Cheers

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 08:48:55PM -0600, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
> are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
> to emergent or resultant rule sets.
> 
> The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set.  They
> believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
> of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
> it.  They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
> answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
> than emergent principles of chemistry.  They also bet that the variety
> of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
> according to the chemistry they knew.  And they were right again, it
> wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
> result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
> of biology.
> 
> Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
> configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
> operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
> statistical mechanics.  It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
> same laws, no emergent forces.  There are configuration forces, but
> they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
> packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
> complicated configurations of nuclei.
> 
> The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
> last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
> inheritance.
> 
> But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum.  The Emergentists,
> as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
> configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
> chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
> happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
> distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
> electrons in the physics lab.  But it all turned out to be part of the
> resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
> Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
> one sense they really cared about.
> 
> -- rec --
> 
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
>  wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
> > reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central assertions
> > of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
> > business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes on to
> > say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
> > main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> > concerned, seem enormously implausible."  (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
> >
> > Now here is my problem:  everything that I understand about contemporary
> > Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
> > proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.  Thus, to
> > me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> > dramatically MORE plausible.  If all the consequences of the folding and
> > unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
> > forces" then what the dickens are they?
> >
> > Can anybody help me with this paradox
> >
> > I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
> > forward any remarks he may have back to you.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 
> > 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
> >
> 
> 
> 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

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Roger Critchlow]

As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
to emergent or resultant rule sets.

The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set.  They
believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
it.  They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
than emergent principles of chemistry.  They also bet that the variety
of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
according to the chemistry they knew.  And they were right again, it
wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
of biology.

Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
statistical mechanics.  It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
same laws, no emergent forces.  There are configuration forces, but
they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
complicated configurations of nuclei.

The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
inheritance.

But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum.  The Emergentists,
as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
electrons in the physics lab.  But it all turned out to be part of the
resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
one sense they really cared about.

-- rec --

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
 wrote:
> All,
>
> I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
> reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central assertions
> of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
> business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes on to
> say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
> main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> concerned, seem enormously implausible."  (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
>
> Now here is my problem:  everything that I understand about contemporary
> Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
> proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.  Thus, to
> me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> dramatically MORE plausible.  If all the consequences of the folding and
> unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
> forces" then what the dickens are they?
>
> Can anybody help me with this paradox
>
> I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
> forward any remarks he may have back to you.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>


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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

Russ, 

To me, the mark of an educated person is the ability to hold different views of 
the same subject in mind at the same time.  I think our discussions on this 
list have tended to lack depth, in the sense that everybody has their opinion 
but has grave difficulty representing with any fidelity the opinion with which 
they disagree.  
Thus, our discussions take on the character of so many fog horns on a 
night-shrouded bay.  Anybody who has read through and discussed the sources in 
this book has increased their ability to articulate their opinion, that is, to 
compare and contrast it with other opinions.   But hey, I am an academic and a 
humanist: what would you expect me to believe

Don't let that woman out of your sight!!

Nick 



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group
Sent: 9/14/2009 5:39:16 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence


That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously.  Why should 
we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What 
we should care about is what does make sense now?  Of course, as I mentioned to 
you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's 
very important what people used to think. 

It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what 
people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to 
here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are 
interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question. 
 

If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be 
worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of 
what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether 
it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the 
author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think 
something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking 
about it.

-- Russ 



On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
wrote:

All,  

I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are 
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central assertions of 
the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of 
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes on to say 
that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main 
doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, 
seem enormously implausible."  (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).  

Now here is my problem:  everything that I understand about contemporary 
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and 
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.  Thus, to me, 
these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically 
MORE plausible.  If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of 
proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what 
the dickens are they?  

Can anybody help me with this paradox

I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will 
forward any remarks he may have back to you.  

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/





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
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Russ Abbott]

That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously.  Why
should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense
now? What we should care about is what does make sense now?  Of course, as I
mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern
English, thinks it's very important what people used to think.

It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important
what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from
there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you
are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the
question.

If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would
be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the
presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to
determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a
problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British
Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for
spending much time talking about it.

-- Russ


On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  All,
>
> I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
> reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central assertions
> of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
> business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes on to
> say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the
> main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is]
> concerned, seem enormously implausible."  (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
>
> Now here is my problem:  everything that I understand about contemporary
> Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
> proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.  Thus, to
> me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem
> dramatically MORE plausible.  If all the consequences of the folding and
> unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational
> forces" then what the dickens are they?
>
> Can anybody help me with this paradox
>
> I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
> forward any remarks he may have back to you.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

All,  

I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are 
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar.  One of the central assertions of 
the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of 
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely.  He goes on to say 
that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main 
doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, 
seem enormously implausible."  (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).  

Now here is my problem:  everything that I understand about contemporary 
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and 
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development.  Thus, to me, 
these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically 
MORE plausible.  If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of 
proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what 
the dickens are they?  

Can anybody help me with this paradox

I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will 
forward any remarks he may have back to you.  

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Merle Lefkoff]

Dear Nick,

So how did it go?  I had to make a decision, and I wasn't sure of the 
time or place for emergence--so I spent the day at the inaugural 
national organizing meeting of the Slow Money Movement at the Santa Fe 
Farmers Market.  It was---awesome!   I have a deep interest in 
transformational social movements, especially when they are likely to go 
viral as this one will.


Thanks for your note.  Please keep me in the loop.

Merle




Nicholas Thompson wrote:


All,
 
The emergence seminar met at Downtown Subscription this afternoon and 
survived a hailstorm, so I am feeling pretty perky about it.   Next 
week, we will read The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism by Brian 
P. McLaughlin.  British Emergentism  is charming to read about.It 
is all so innocent, upbeat , hierarchical, and /Victorian.  /The great 
and stable hierarchy of nature.  You can almost think of the Queen 
herself as the last and greatest emergent 
phenomenon.   In McLaughlin's essay,  we learn, for instance, that the 
term, emergent, arose as a contrast to the term resultant ... as in 
the addition of vectors.  When the result of the interaction of two 
forces was different from the resultant, you had an emergent.  See: 
it's all so simple!  I hope that others will join us from afar in 
reading this source.   I have written the author, who teaches at 
Rutgers, to ask him to supply a pdf of the essay  for me to make 
available for our discussion on the the condition that we would make 
that discussion available to him  in some way, but he has not written 
back.  If anybody knows him and would plead our case, I would be in 
their debt. 
 
A few of you have asked that we might change the time to later.  I am 
going to hang tough for one more week because of the Ulam lectures, 
but after that we might consider a later time.  I am a bit reluctant 
to make it a beer thing, because I want people sharp, but we shall see. 
 
Thanks all,
 
Nick
 
PS.  I have a xerox copy of the article if anybody local would like it.
 
 
Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu )
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 

 
 
 




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




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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar--British Emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

The emergence seminar met at Downtown Subscription this afternoon and survived 
a hailstorm, so I am feeling pretty perky about it.   Next week, we will read 
The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism by Brian P. McLaughlin.  British 
Emergentism  is charming to read about.It is all so innocent, upbeat , 
hierarchical, and Victorian.  The great and stable hierarchy of nature.  You 
can almost think of the Queen herself as the last and greatest emergent 
phenomenon.   In McLaughlin's essay,  we learn, for instance, that the term, 
emergent, arose as a contrast to the term resultant ... as in the addition of 
vectors.  When the result of the interaction of two forces was different from 
the resultant, you had an emergent.  See: it's all so simple!  I hope that 
others will join us from afar in reading this source.   I have written the 
author, who teaches at Rutgers, to ask him to supply a pdf of the essay  for me 
to make available for our discussion on the the condition that we would make 
that discussion available to him  in some way, but he has not written back.  If 
anybody knows him and would plead our case, I would be in their debt.  

A few of you have asked that we might change the time to later.  I am going to 
hang tough for one more week because of the Ulam lectures, but after that we 
might consider a later time.  I am a bit reluctant to make it a beer thing, 
because I want people sharp, but we shall see.  

Thanks all, 

Nick 

PS.  I have a xerox copy of the article if anybody local would like it. 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Russ, 

It's my least favorite of the seven questions.  To me, the question my be 
recast as, "What light's your wick in the world to which the label emergence 
has been attached.?"  I know you wouldn't know if from my posts on Friam but I 
spent most of my career working as a research scientist on forms of 
communication ... bird song, babies cries, whining, for instance.  As a dyed in 
the wool materialist, I have always been fascinated by the question of how 
things come into being and why they have come to take the form that they do.  
Rather than using the question to build a wall around emergence, I would hope 
that we will use it to develop a list of all the things labeled emergent that 
have challenged the imagination of group members.  

Have you read Sean Carroll's book on EVO DEVO?  For years I sat in a psychology 
department listening to sterile arguments concerning nature and nurture.  And 
now, by god, we know how it works, and neither nature nor nurture -- in the 
sense that their protagonists understood them -- had anything to do with it.  I 
am so glad that I lived to learn how nature makes an organism.  

nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group
Sent: 9/9/2009 6:20:13 PM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar


Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity. 


Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence?


In saying that I'm not suggesting that emergence should not be defined -- 
although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so widely 
used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is that leads 
you to want to define emergence in the first place.  It seems to me that it's 
impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed below until one has 
developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is that one wants the 
word emergence to capture. That's where I would suggest you start: what is your 
possibly vague sense of the sorts of things you want the word emergence to 
refer to. Once you have clarified that for yourself I think the questions below 
will be easier to deal with -- as will the papers in the book.

-- Russ




On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
wrote:

All, 

The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday 
(tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria).  I 
suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the 
collection, EMERGENCE.  Why a collection?  Why a seminar?  Because, as I keep 
saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject.  One 
thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking 
from discussions.  So academics tend to scoff.  I think the mark of a truly 
educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one 
idea in his or her head at once. to compare and contrast.  Bedau and 
Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis 
by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors.  
These are: 

1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, 
unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience 
(whatever that is?)
2.  What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, 
patterns laws, or something else?
3.  What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena?  (Is emergence a rare 
phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in 
psychology?) 
4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye 
of the beholder. 
5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and 
diachronic, or are both possible?  
6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena 
with their new causes and effects? 
7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases?  

Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we 
hold on these questions.  


Nick 




Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/





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
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

Re: [FRIAM] Emergence Seminar

[Russ Abbott]

Since I won't be there, let me suggest a pre-requisite activity.

Discuss why do you (or anyone else) want to define emergence?

In saying that I'm not suggesting that *emergence *should not be defined --
although I now think that it is unfortunate that the word has become so
widely used. What I want to do is to prompt you to talk about what it is
that leads you to want to define *emergence* in the first place.  It seems
to me that it's impossible even to begin to answer the questions listed
below until one has developed for oneself an intuitive idea about what it is
that one wants the word *emergence *to capture. That's where I would suggest
you start: what is your possibly vague sense of the sorts of things you want
the word *emergence *to refer to. Once you have clarified that for yourself
I think the questions below will be easier to deal with -- as will the
papers in the book.

-- Russ



On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  All,
>
> The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this
> thursday (tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua
> Fria).  I suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages,
> to the collection, EMERGENCE.  Why a collection?  Why a seminar?  Because,
> as I keep saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the
> subject.  One thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude
> ways of thinking from discussions.  So academics tend to scoff.  I think the
> mark of a truly educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to
> hold more than one idea in his or her head at once. to compare and
> contrast.  Bedau and Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage
> in this kind of analysis by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we
> read each of the authors.  These are:
>
> 1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility,
> unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or
> supvenience (whatever that is?)
> 2.  What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena,
> patterns laws, or something else?
> 3.  What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena?  (Is emergence a rare
> phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in
> psychology?)
> 4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the
> eye of the beholder.
> 5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and
> diachronic, or are both possible?
> 6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena
> with their new causes and effects?
> 7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent
> bases?
>
> Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions
> we hold on these questions.
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> 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
>

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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seiminar ( O O O O P S !!!!!)

[Nicholas Thompson]

Sorry everybody:  4 pm, Garcia and ACEQUIA MADRE.  

Thanks Owen, 

Nick 


Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

[FRIAM] Emergence Seminar

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

The emergence seminar, such as it is, will have its first meeting this thursday 
(tomorrow) at Downtown Subcription (which is at Garcia and Agua Fria).  I 
suggest that we devote the seminar, at least in its early stages, to the 
collection, EMERGENCE.  Why a collection?  Why a seminar?  Because, as I keep 
saying (sorry), I want to articulate the different views on the subject.  One 
thing I noticed about academics is their desire to exclude ways of thinking 
from discussions.  So academics tend to scoff.  I think the mark of a truly 
educated (smart, knowledgeable) person is the ability to hold more than one 
idea in his or her head at once. to compare and contrast.  Bedau and 
Humphreys, in their introduction, invite us to engage in this kind of analysis 
by bearing in mind a set of seven questions, as we read each of the authors.  
These are: 

1. How should emergence be defined? (by reference to irreducibility, 
unpredictability, ontological novelty, conceptual novelty, and.or supvenience 
(whatever that is?)
2.  What can be emergent: properties, substances, processes, phenomena, 
patterns laws, or something else?
3.  What is the scope of actual emergent phenomena?  (Is emergence a rare 
phenomenon, or broadly distributed in physics and biology as well as in 
psychology?) 
4. Is emergence an objective feature of the world, or is it merely in the eye 
of the beholder. 
5. Should emergence be viewed as static and synchronic, or as dynamic and 
diachronic, or are both possible?  
6. Does emergence imply or require the existence of new levels of phenomena 
with their new causes and effects? 
7. In what ways are emergent phenomena autonomous from their emergent bases?  

Tomorrow, as a warm up; it would be interesting to see what preconceptions we 
hold on these questions.  


Nick 




Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology an d Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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

Re: [FRIAM] emergence

[Russ Abbott]

Actually, I would say that the issue of strong emergence is important. If
there is no strong emergence, it means that the only things in the Universe
that make anything happen are the fundamental forces of physics. That may
seem obvious, but it means that no matter what we build on top of them,
that's all there is in terms of exploitable forces.

One way to understand this (which uses an example I find myself using all
the time) is in terms of the Game of Life. Nothing (absolutely nothing)
happens on a Game of Life Board other than that the Game of Life rules make
cells go on and off. Gliders, for example, are not a force -- which is why I
called them epiphenomenal in my "Emergence Explained" paper.. They don't
make anything happen. It is not correct to say that when a glider reaches a
cell it makes the cell go on (or off). Nothing makes cells go on or off
other than the Game of Life rules. In other words, there is a sense in which
strict reductionism is right!

Now you already know that I think that a simple reductionist perspective
produces what I've called a blind spot.  But that doesn't mean that there
are any forces in the universe other than the fundamental forces of physics.
That's the challenge of understanding emergence. How can there be higher
level things that act in some sense autonomously and are not reducible in a
simple way to quarks, etc. if the only things in the universe that make
anything happen are the fundamental forces of physics? That's the emergence
quandary -- and it's an important thing to think through. The assertion that
there is no strong emergence forces one into thinking about that. That's why
it's an important idea.

-- Russ



On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>  I agree with your characterization of  his characterization of weak
> emergence, and while I am inclined to agree with your characterization of
> his characterization of strong emergence, I cannot for the life of me find
> it in his present text.
>
> But we agree that the distinction is not worth pounding our head against.
>
> Thanks, Russ,
>
> Nick
>
>  Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
> - Original Message -
>  *From:* Russ Abbott 
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> ;Roger Critchlow  *Cc: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net
> *Sent:* 9/8/2009 11:36:31 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] emergence
>
> I read that article a while ago, and my memory is similar.  I think that
> basically Bedau doesn't understand what emergence means. But then he says as
> much. The point of the article is to attempt to define categories as a way
> of beginning. It may have been useful at the time, but (in my opinion) it is
> now obsolete.
>
> As I recall, strong emergence meant essentially the appearance of a new
> force of nature, something with objective causal powers like gravity or
> electromagnetic attraction/repulsion -- but absolutely new. Vitalism and its
> notiont of a "life force" is good examples. It appears only at a certain
> level of biochemical complexity. Once it appears it is able to do things
> (like being alive) that simply could not be done otherwise and could not be
> understood in terms of the pre-existing forces of nature.
>
> Weak emergence means that one can't understand the emergent phenomenon
> analytically (like adding the masses of a number of entities to get a total
> mass of the aggregate) but had to execute it to find out. This is like
> software for which one can't solve the halting problem but have to run it to
> see -- and one may never get the answer.
>
> -- Russ
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:
>
>> I thought that it was pretty simple:  strong emergence would be
>> miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically
>> problematic;  weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses,
>> which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely
>> predictable.
>>
>> I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of
>> philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common
>> usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical
>> discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is
>> technical and completely different from the common usage.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas
>> Thompson wrote:
>> > Owen and Russ,
>> >
>> > I have spent 

Re: [FRIAM] emergence

[Nicholas Thompson]

I agree with your characterization of  his characterization of weak emergence, 
and while I am inclined to agree with your characterization of his 
characterization of strong emergence, I cannot for the life of me find it in 
his present text.  

But we agree that the distinction is not worth pounding our head against.  

Thanks, Russ, 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/




- Original Message - 
From: Russ Abbott 
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group;Roger Critchlow
Cc: nickthomp...@earthlink.net
Sent: 9/8/2009 11:36:31 AM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence


I read that article a while ago, and my memory is similar.  I think that 
basically Bedau doesn't understand what emergence means. But then he says as 
much. The point of the article is to attempt to define categories as a way of 
beginning. It may have been useful at the time, but (in my opinion) it is now 
obsolete.

As I recall, strong emergence meant essentially the appearance of a new force 
of nature, something with objective causal powers like gravity or 
electromagnetic attraction/repulsion -- but absolutely new. Vitalism and its 
notiont of a "life force" is good examples. It appears only at a certain level 
of biochemical complexity. Once it appears it is able to do things (like being 
alive) that simply could not be done otherwise and could not be understood in 
terms of the pre-existing forces of nature. 

Weak emergence means that one can't understand the emergent phenomenon 
analytically (like adding the masses of a number of entities to get a total 
mass of the aggregate) but had to execute it to find out. This is like software 
for which one can't solve the halting problem but have to run it to see -- and 
one may never get the answer.

-- Russ



On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:

I thought that it was pretty simple:  strong emergence would be
miraculous if it happened, which is why it is metaphysically
problematic;  weak emergence is what we find, unexpected lawfulnesses,
which, in the end, turn out to be explicable, if not entirely
predictable.

I followed the link in the wikipedia to the stanford encyc. of
philosophy article on supervenience which explained that the common
usage, which was at least once commonly used in philosophical
discussions of emergence, is not the philosophical usage, which is
technical and completely different from the common usage.

-- rec --


On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Nicholas
Thompson wrote:
> Owen and Russ,
>
> I have spent some time trying to reread Bedau and have lost patience with
> him.  With normal human effort, I have not been able to articulate his
> categories, weak and strong emergence.   The reference to reduction in the
> definition of strong emergence really gets us nowhere because reduction
> isnt nailed down in the article.
>
> I guess I would like to come to an understanding with you guys: Either we
> give up on the distinction between strong and weak emergence, or we agree
> to spend some time in Bedau's text explicating his meaning.My suspicion
> is that Bedau's presentation is not coherent:  i.e., while his distinction
> between weak and strong is central to his argument, he does not go to the
> effort to articulate that distinction, i.e., to define weak and strong in
> the same terms so that we can see the contrast between them.  If the
> distinction is foundation to either of you, then help me to understand it
> by pointing to some part of the text that you find particularly lucid.
>
> The "Bedau" I am referring to is that found in the Bedau and Humphreys
> collection.  Another version of that article up on the web at
>
> http://people.reed.edu/~mab/publications/papers/principia.pdf
>
> Even tho one is cited as a reprint of the other, I think I have detected
> some important differences, so we would have to be careful.
>
> We could agree to have read the article by a particular time and "meet" and
> open a thread on the article when we have all done so.  A real webinar or,
> better still, a WBB (Web Brown Bag).  Each of us could be required to have
> a bottle of beer open beside our computer.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: Owen Densmore 
>> To: 
>> Date: 9/8/2009 9:46:07 AM
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence
>>
>> The Truth Sez:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_emergence
>>
>> It Must Be True.
>>
>> 
>>I spit me of