[FRIAM] Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"

[Nicholas Thompson]

I agree that defitions, like everything else in science, should be heuristic.  

So, I suggest we define an emergent property as one that depends on the arrangement or timing of the elements that make up the whole.  In so defining emergence, we are led to ask, in every case of putative emergence, what is the particular arrangment or timing of presentation of the parts that makes this property possible.  

Now, the tricky bit comes when we SUSPECT that a property is emergent but have not yet discovered (or think perhaps we may NEVER discover) the arrangments of parts that makes it possible.  I gather that some properties of CA's fall into that category.   Not sure what to do.  We could, I suppose, define a loose category of "putative emergence" using surprise as a criterion, but reserve the term "emergent" itself for a property whose dependence on arrangment and/or timeing has been demonstrated.  

It's heuristic because it leads to research. 

Nick 

Nick 

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




----- Original Message ----- 
From: Douglas Roberts 
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 11/7/2009 10:02:05 AM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Crutchfield 's "Is anything ever new?"


100%, complete, total unequivocal agreement w/Glen.

--Doug


-- 
Doug Roberts
droberts at rti.org
doug at parrot-farm.net
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:15 AM, glen e. p. ropella <gepr at agent-based-modeling.com> wrote:

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 11/05/2009 05:04 PM:

> I think your rejection of emergence applies only to (2) above.... and
> possibly (4), if we understand "no way" to mean "no way we have thought of
> yet".   But I bet you disagree.


Naaa.  I don't really disagree.  I said I TEND to think that emergence
is fictitious.  Until I see a definition or construction of it that I
can _use_ to get my work done, it's a useless concept, regardless of
whether it exists or not.  I don't frankly care if it exists.  What
matters is whether it can be used for some purpose (other than passing
the time arguing with bright people on e-mail lists ;-).

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