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What is emergence?

axispraxis.wordpress.com

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: What is emergence?

#61
post #31

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.

Some systems are simply random. No amount of simulation will tell you exactly when an unstable atom will decay.

We've spent the last century arguing about what this means for physics, and we still have no idea - even though quantum events can have macroscopic consequences. (To give a contrived example - a decaying atom may damage some human DNA and cause cancer in a historically important individual who dies decades earlier than they would have otherwise, changing the course of history.)

It's more accurate to say that we can model a small selection of mathematically 'pure" system types that are neither random nor emergent, on timescales that are comprehensible to us.

Re: What is emergence?

#62
> In this post I haven’t really provided any references, but hopefully in future I’ll do short posts explaining where these ideas came from.

One such reference might be "Strong and Weak Emergence" by David Chalmers [0], given the fact that "weak" emergence was introduced but "strong" emergence was not even mentioned (though indirectly implied).

[0] http://www.consc.net/papers/emergence.pdf

Re: What is emergence?

#63

> In this post I haven’t really provided any references, but hopefully in future I’ll do short posts explaining where these ideas came from. One such reference might be "Strong and Weak Emergence" by David Chalmers [0], given the fact that "weak" emergence was introduced but "strong" emergence was not even mentioned (though indirectly implied). [0] http://www.consc.net/papers/emergence.pdf

Philosophical theses need empirical support. The biggest issue wrt emergence is "downward causation". If there is strong emergence, it is going to be ontologically different: that's why it is ontological mergence.

As a consequence, this new entity has to function as a causal agent. Otherwise, why populate the world with entities that don't work as causal agents. Upward causation is consistent with both ontological and epistemic emergence. Downward causation is consistent with epistemic emergence. Are there examples of ontological emergence that can play a role in downward causation?

Until then, it is all unbounded philosophical speculation. These speculations get bounded (constrained) by empirical sciences.

Re: What is emergence?

#64
post #63

> In this post I haven’t really provided any references, but hopefully in future I’ll do short posts explaining where these ideas came from. One such reference might be "Strong and Weak Emergence" by David Chalmers [0], given the fact that "weak" emergence was introduced but "strong" emergence was not even mentioned (though indirectly implied). [0] http://www.consc.net/papers/emergence.pdf

Philosophical theses need empirical support. The biggest issue wrt emergence is "downward causation". If there is strong emergence, it is going to be ontologically different: that's why it is ontological mergence. As a consequence, this new entity has to function as a causal agent. Otherwise, why populate the world with entities that don't work as causal agents. Upward causation is consistent with both ontological an…

And to take your argument just one step further: physics operates on causal closure, and I don't know how proponents of emergentism reconcile it with causal closure.

Re: What is emergence?

#65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophical theses need empirical support. The biggest issue wrt emergence is "downward causation". If there is strong emergence, it is going to be ontologically different: that's why it is ontological mergence. As a consequence, this new entity has to function as a causal agent. Otherwise, why populate the world with entities that don't work as causal agents. Upward causation is consistent with both ontological an…

And to take your argument just one step further: physics operates on causal closure, and I don't know how proponents of emergentism reconcile it with causal closure.

One of the toys philosophers use to explain away anything is to divide/classify. If there is an issue with X, make a distinction between strong-X and weaker-X. First, it is strong emergence (ontic) vs. weaker emergence (epistemic). Later, it is "strong" downward causation vs. "weaker" downward causation.

This endless subdivision is a pass time.

Re: What is emergence?

#66
post #59
post #57

Maybe I am speaking outside my comfort zone a little, but isn't this the same as trying to find physical axioms that build up a whole and it has been disproven by Godel with respect to Whiteheads and Russels Principia Mathematica and completely blows reductionists out of the water if we go as far as equating math == physics in all but name

"math = physics" is true on paper, because most, if not all, physical laws are equations. The issue lies elsewhere: ontology. One can subscribe to realist ontology in physics, yet become a Platonist wrt math. One can say that "particles exist and play the role of causal antecedents" and that "sets don't exist in this world and don't play the role of causal antecedents"; that's why many mathematicians subscribe to Pla…

> "math = physics" is true on paper, because most, if not all, physical laws are equations

If we only understand the the physical laws which can be represented as equations that only equates the known ones, so physics >= math.

We can also create math that has no known relation to physical laws, so math > physics.

Re: What is emergence?

#67
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…

Fluid dynamics is one of those problems I was referring to at the end.

I'm not a CFD guy but it's partly an issue of not having enough computing power - fluid dynamics doesn't scale the same way as regular mechanics so you have to compute the whole picture.

Re: What is emergence?

#68

If the author sees this, please post the journal club syllabus that this grew out of! Would be very interesting even without aligning references to your text. Thanks for the post.

You are most welcome! Glad you liked it. I've never logged in here before, and I am amused that someone posted this little emergence post here. I intended it mostly for circulation among friends. But you have inspired me to collect the 'syllabus' of my informal journal club. Here is an annotated reading list:

https://axispraxis.wordpress.com/2020/05/30/an-emergence-rea...

Re: What is emergence?

#69
post #13

Obligatory thesis that cracks this open: "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" An utterly phenomenal book: https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Connected-Brains-Cities-Sof...

Thanks for the recommendation, just got it on Amazon! I generally buy every (interesting) book I see mentioned on HN, and here's hoping it's a good one ;)

Oh, I do hope you like it!!!

(It earned a place on my shelf next to "Godel Escher Bach", by Hofstadter, and "Society of Mind", by Minsky.)

Re: What is emergence?

#70

If the author sees this, please post the journal club syllabus that this grew out of! Would be very interesting even without aligning references to your text. Thanks for the post.

You are most welcome! Glad you liked it. I've never logged in here before, and I am amused that someone posted this little emergence post here. I intended it mostly for circulation among friends. But you have inspired me to collect the 'syllabus' of my informal journal club. Here is an annotated reading list: https://axispraxis.wordpress.com/2020/05/30/an-emergence-rea...

Much obliged and glad you visited. Your characterization of emergence as how we experience a jump between conceptual frameworks, rather than progression through an objective hierarchy, scratched an itch. Appreciating science as a set of frameworks floating in sea of unknown, rather than tiling and comprehending our world, would fix a lot of issues in science and a lot of the ongoing crisis of faith in expertise. Look forward to reading what informed the writing.
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