What is emergence? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is emergence?

#31

Post by trixie_ » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:35 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #30

mhh__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. If there is higher structure, we can't even see the noise yet. There's much work to be done, but unless something really amazing happens it'll be a long time before we get anywhere near new fundamental(there's still loads of work to be done elsewhere) physics

> Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. Actually there are a lot of predictions we can’t make today. Stuff that are very important 1) Why do most young people do fine with COVID-19 but some apparently healthy people do not? 2) How exactly do proteins fold 3) Will it rain tomorrow at location x at time x 4) when will my pet tiger de…

None of the things you listed depend on explanations outside of the realm of physics that we already understand. Theoretically with a simulator powerful enough and using the principles we already know, all of the items you listed could be solved.

Re: What is emergence?

#32

Post by Thorentis » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #30

mhh__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. If there is higher structure, we can't even see the noise yet. There's much work to be done, but unless something really amazing happens it'll be a long time before we get anywhere near new fundamental(there's still loads of work to be done elsewhere) physics

> Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. Actually there are a lot of predictions we can’t make today. Stuff that are very important 1) Why do most young people do fine with COVID-19 but some apparently healthy people do not? 2) How exactly do proteins fold 3) Will it rain tomorrow at location x at time x 4) when will my pet tiger de…

I think the problems you described are in two different groups though. The first group, is where we understand everything well, but we don't have the ability to track every variable accurately and record the amount of data required, in order to make good predictions. Weather falls into this category.

Then there are those like protein folding and animal behaviour where we understand the building blocks, but even of we could track every single building block there would be something missing for us to make predictions.

Re: What is emergence?

#33

Post by bonoboTP » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #18

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the word "emergence". In pop science, it was spoken in reverent tones. Never mind that they never gave a definition of it that didn't sound trivial -- the word was dripping with meaning and the promise of hidden wisdom. I went to college and studied physics. I learned how the behavior of many atoms leads to thermodynamics and the properties of materials. I learned how elementary…

I agree it's wooey in many cases, and is used as a near synonym of miracle or magic.

But I think a good summary is that emergence happens when relations between things on a finer level of analysis become the things themselves on a coarser, higher level AND that these new things also have rich and complex interactions among them, making the levels roughly equally interesting, complicated and useful. Overall the bottom level is "enough" in theory but rising up the levels allows us to gain orders of magnitude more "practicality".

Sometimes by common sense we stumble upon a mid-level concept and then when we learn about the lower level explanation, we proclaim that the original phenomenon was "emergent".

Now it's a great (but I think not very fruitful) philosophical debate to decide which level has how much "realness", is the higher level just a convenient fiction, an illusion, a practical description and there is a lowest, rock bottom level which the universe/God really "cares about", or are all levels just as real and the whole hierarchy/ladder is just our conception,and not only can rising up the abstraction be an artificial action, but maybe descending lower can also be a illusory/non-natural and a result of our search for practicality and the rock bottom isn't really that real and the universe doesn't know to care about it.

Just as in math the naive explanation is we have fundamental axioms and we derive the higher level theorems from it. But in reality what happens is we know what theorems we want (to make things interesting or empirically useful) and then look for ways to structure the axioms to give rise to the "real" theorems.

Or, what view of a signal is more real and fundamental, the time-domain or the Fourier-domain? Both can be equally real or equally fundamental, and can give rise to equally interesting Analyse. Or perhaps not, and the time domain is what the universe cares about and has in its "source code" (which is probably a misplaced metaphor though) and Fourier is just for convenience...

Other times when making the relations into thing (reifying them) and vice versa we don't really move higher or lower, we stay roughly on the same level. An example is duality in graph theory (faces to nodes, nodes to faces) or in optimization (exchanging the role of variables and equations). And at the risk of sounding wooey, this is similar to the duality, non-duality ideas in Eastern philosophy, looking at the same stuff but interpreting "the gaps" as "the things" and vice versa. And then saying neither is more real, both are real and neither are, together they are real, separately they aren't etc. Maybe the levels are not a strict hierarchy, maybe they loop back, maybe consciousness is indeed such a feedback loop across different levels (a la Hofstadter), then you get to resonances in feedback loops and if you push it far it gets quite wooey. But it's still very differently wooey than some quantum healer fixing the resonances in your liver through the TV.

Re: What is emergence?

#34

Post by Thorentis » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:39 AM UTC

trixie_ wrote: post #31

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. Actually there are a lot of predictions we can’t make today. Stuff that are very important 1) Why do most young people do fine with COVID-19 but some apparently healthy people do not? 2) How exactly do proteins fold 3) Will it rain tomorrow at location x at time x 4) when will my pet tiger de…

None of the things you listed depend on explanations outside of the realm of physics that we already understand. Theoretically with a simulator powerful enough and using the principles we already know, all of the items you listed could be solved.

I think there's a difference between understanding a system well enough to make predictions, and recreating a system (a simulation) and then seeing what it does. Many times in history before the physics was properly understood, the best scientists and engineers could do was create some kind of "dry run" and simulate/recreate whatever process they were testing, and use that to predict outcomes of the real one. But actually being able to look at the state of a live system and predict what it will do next accurately is quite different.

Re: What is emergence?

#35

Post by Thorentis » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:42 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #33

knzhou wrote: post #18

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the word "emergence". In pop science, it was spoken in reverent tones. Never mind that they never gave a definition of it that didn't sound trivial -- the word was dripping with meaning and the promise of hidden wisdom. I went to college and studied physics. I learned how the behavior of many atoms leads to thermodynamics and the properties of materials. I learned how elementary…

I agree it's wooey in many cases, and is used as a near synonym of miracle or magic. But I think a good summary is that emergence happens when relations between things on a finer level of analysis become the things themselves on a coarser, higher level AND that these new things also have rich and complex interactions among them , making the levels roughly equally interesting, complicated and useful. Overall the botto…

Isn't this what abstraction is? A computer looks magical if you don't understand binary logic gates and transistors etc. Even though I understand it all, the things my computer can do seems magical. I think this is what people mean when they say "emergent" but for some reason don't use more widely understood terms like "high levels of abstraction".

Perhaps this hints at us not even understanding the lower levels of many areas well enough yet.

Re: What is emergence?

#36

Post by adrianN » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:57 AM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #32

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. Actually there are a lot of predictions we can’t make today. Stuff that are very important 1) Why do most young people do fine with COVID-19 but some apparently healthy people do not? 2) How exactly do proteins fold 3) Will it rain tomorrow at location x at time x 4) when will my pet tiger de…

I think the problems you described are in two different groups though. The first group, is where we understand everything well, but we don't have the ability to track every variable accurately and record the amount of data required, in order to make good predictions. Weather falls into this category. Then there are those like protein folding and animal behaviour where we understand the building blocks, but even of we…

In case of protein folding it's mostly that the optimization problem is NP-hard.

Re: What is emergence?

#37

Post by bonoboTP » Sat, May 30, 2020, 8:35 AM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #35

bonoboTP wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's wooey in many cases, and is used as a near synonym of miracle or magic. But I think a good summary is that emergence happens when relations between things on a finer level of analysis become the things themselves on a coarser, higher level AND that these new things also have rich and complex interactions among them , making the levels roughly equally interesting, complicated and useful. Overall the botto…

Isn't this what abstraction is? A computer looks magical if you don't understand binary logic gates and transistors etc. Even though I understand it all, the things my computer can do seems magical. I think this is what people mean when they say "emergent" but for some reason don't use more widely understood terms like "high levels of abstraction". Perhaps this hints at us not even understanding the lower levels of m…

I expanded my comment because an important thing is to discuss whether the different levels are actually a property of the universe or just a property of our description? Is math discovered or invented. What is part of the map and what of the territory.

I think people use emergence more when it's viewed and suggested as independent from our description, it really emerges on its own and we just discover and describe this. And "abstraction" is used when we view our role greater, we invented an abstraction to easier manage the complexity. So emergence is more incidental, accidental, serendipitous and unexpected, while abstraction is intentional and purposeful and designed.

Now which is which and whether the distinction itself touches on something real or is just a different view of the same thing, is another great topic for discussion.

Re: What is emergence?

#38

Post by tasuki » Sat, May 30, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #18

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the word "emergence". In pop science, it was spoken in reverent tones. Never mind that they never gave a definition of it that didn't sound trivial -- the word was dripping with meaning and the promise of hidden wisdom. I went to college and studied physics. I learned how the behavior of many atoms leads to thermodynamics and the properties of materials. I learned how elementary…

You might enjoy https://www.readthesequences.com/The-Futility-Of-Emergence

Re: What is emergence?

#39

Post by tpetrina » Sat, May 30, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

This whole article reeks of "science is BS, we need free will for humans to be real and morally responsible".

For all of its smart wording, this amounts to the same old issue Aristotle had with describing the mathematical universe in which somehow humans are different enough to warrant "higher stuff".

Is there any useful criticism of science besides pseudo-attacks always coming from antropocentric, and usually religious, corners? Can't we just do the one, final Copernican shift and frickin' move humans from the centre?

Re: What is emergence?

#40

Post by mattigames » Sat, May 30, 2020, 11:24 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #30

mhh__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. If there is higher structure, we can't even see the noise yet. There's much work to be done, but unless something really amazing happens it'll be a long time before we get anywhere near new fundamental(there's still loads of work to be done elsewhere) physics

> Sure, but part of the issue is that we can make accurate predictions of pretty much everything we can readily observe today. Actually there are a lot of predictions we can’t make today. Stuff that are very important 1) Why do most young people do fine with COVID-19 but some apparently healthy people do not? 2) How exactly do proteins fold 3) Will it rain tomorrow at location x at time x 4) when will my pet tiger de…

That's what we do because it's all we can do. Meaning it's likely predicting all those things you listed are as hard to predict as the lotto numbers of next week, for which even if we knew the exact position of every ball in the lottery ball machine at atomic level we would need to predict the thoughts of the person who will spin the machine, for that level of predictions nothing short of a full simulation of reality (ala Matrix) would suffice, and even if we already had a machine powerful enough to do that inputting the state of every atom into that machine would still be outside our capabilities, and I'm afraid it will always be.