Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#2Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates.
There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#3Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
True, but then, taken to its logical conclusion, isn't everything just "things that emerge in an observer's model of the world", e.g., an ant, a chair, a rock?
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#4Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity
A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that can sit on it and along with the gazillions of other arrangements of atoms that can do the same thing we call it a "chair" because it's a very useful way to call things. There is really not much interesting in the gazillions of microscopic variations of placements of atoma that give shape to the same large scale behavior.
You don't care about the individual momenta of the atoms. What you really care about is that you don't freeze or burn your bottom as you sit on the chair.
So while those properties do depend on the observer (because they are meaningful to the observer) that doesn't mean they are arbitrary and any observer can just choose how to see things.
That's why emergence is an interesting phenomenon. Emergent properties are still objective, because we can all agree on them regardless of our mood or culture or agenda
It's a "real pattern", as real as the underlying things it's "layered" on
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#5Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that can sit on it and along with the gazillions of other arrangements of atoms that can do the same thing we call it a "chair" because it's a very useful way to call things. There is really not much interesting in the gazillions of microscopic variations of placem…
Yeah, seams like you and I agree.
Even if I would not say that "A chair doesn't really exist". But it seams like that was more like a rhetorical argument from you given your last paragraph.
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#6Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Let there be some ants. Let each individual ant act according to local rules.
None of the individual ant’s rules say “build an anthill,” yet after a few days there is an anthill.
I predict there are many anthills that have never been observed. So we have a fact of nature (anthill exists) that “emerges” from local interactions of ants — without an observer.
Where does the above go wrong in your view?
Edit: fixed grammar.
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#7Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that can sit on it and along with the gazillions of other arrangements of atoms that can do the same thing we call it a "chair" because it's a very useful way to call things. There is really not much interesting in the gazillions of microscopic variations of placem…
These discussions, if kept going long enough, usually (in my experience) move on to being about the true definition of 'real' and 'exists'.
Oops! - that's just added 'true' and 'definition' to the list...
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#8This is a formalisation of one aspect of emergence: that a set of properties of individual objects (I0,..In) do not express properties of aggregate wholes (W0..Wn).
But (1) this fails to formalise this notion, since we're not talking about two languages 'plucked from thin air' -- they are langauges whose domains are I-terms and W-terms (a metaphysical, not a logical, constraint).
And (2) it's not a useful formalisation of this really either, since the discussion is why, not that (this is taken as a given).
Suppose that weak emergence is true, then the failure of the I-language to express the W-language is an illusion -- rather there's just some very large number of terms involving I that W reduces to.
Suppose strong emergence is true, then no amount of I-terms will express a W-term.
Which of these is the case cannot be settled as a matter of logic, so the construction of two languages (I-lang) and (W-lang) begs the question. If you say emergence is simply W-inexpressible in I, then you're begging the strong view.
(Incidentally, I take the strong view).
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#9Emergence is simply repeating patterns observed in aggregates. There is nothing that "emerges" in the physical universe, instead things emerge in an observer's model of the world.
Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that can sit on it and along with the gazillions of other arrangements of atoms that can do the same thing we call it a "chair" because it's a very useful way to call things. There is really not much interesting in the gazillions of microscopic variations of placem…
> A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms
If a particular arrangement of the atoms doesn't make a chair a chair, only its use determines identity, then are you also a chair if someone decides to use you that way?
If to be a chair is to be "just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that [we] can sit on it", then what is a human being?
Are you also not nothing but an collection of atoms? What makes you different from the aggregate of atoms you call a chair?
How can both you and I share humanity? Is this a matter of convention? Why this convention? And if usefulness is again the criterion, toward what end?
If I can burn a chair in my furnace, why not you? You're both just collections of atoms, aren't you?
Is your mind just a collection of atoms? If so, how can it entertain these notions, like models or patterns or usefulness or meaningfulness, that are not just collections of atoms?
What are atoms? Are they also collections of atoms?
How did you, a collection of atoms, come to know that atoms exist, that everything is just collection of atoms? And how is it that you know everything is just a collection of atoms, but the existence of anything else is a matter of "models" or convention? And why are atoms privileged in this way?
[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html
[1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/10/cartwright-on-reduc...
Re: Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]
#10What is an example of emergence that is not self-similarity, and given the diminishing entropy of self-similar structures and processes, how is emergence not just a mean reversion in the entropy of a system? We could say that information is what emerges from a system as the result of the mean reversion of its entropy over time.