Why conversational equations and emergence (General)

by romansh ⌂ @, Sunday, March 30, 2014, 17:29 (3674 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony
I found the last section said:
> ... but it was not something that was ever planned nor anticipated. It was an emergent property of three different systems that only happened when they were working together at the same time and under specific circumstances that none of the three systems could anticipate individually.
This conforms with my explanation of emergence where it is something that does not fit a prediction from the model we have from that system. ie all it tells us that our model of that system is incomplete or perhaps wrong.
You then go on to say:
> ... it depends on the pattern, and what the end result of the pattern is. Chemistry and biology have numerous example of emergent patterns that provide new and unexpected functionality.-So it would appear that a pattern is not necessarily emergent but can be. So how does this make my question a non sequitur? If it truly were, you should not be able to answer it.-By implication ... patterns themselves are not emergent, there is some underlying phenomenon that is emergent (at least for you).-> I don't have to define it. People far smarter than I have already done so, and either you are unaware of it or willfully ignore their definitions because they do not suit your views. Either way, I will let them speak for themselves. 
> 
> Emergence Defined 
> 
> Note in particular this: In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.-Here we have in your (Wiki's) defintion: a complex set of simple elements resulting in a complex behaviour. In the words of the great philosopher Homer, Duh!. -In a parent thread to this I quoted this wiki page. Particularly the section to weak and strong emergence. As I said to DHW a while back, I have no problem with the weak interpretation. -Here is a quote from Mark Bedau from the very same wiki article ...
>> Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing.-And if you don't mind we will have less of this willfully ignoring. Just because my views don't meet your expectations Tony.-> Biology can be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of chemistry which, in turn, can be viewed as an emergent property of particle physics. Similarly, psychology could be understood as an emergent property of neurobiological dynamics, and free-market theories understand economy as an emergent feature of psychology.-Yes we make approximations all the way up and and all the way down. -David dismissed the chaotic double pendulum as emergent, simply because it can be modelled with a little bit of accuracy. On the very same wiki page it gave ripples in the sand as an example of emergence. These I would argue can be modelled reasonably well these days with computational fluid dynamics (CFD).-Similarly it gave snowflakes as an example of emergence which can also be modelled. So I don't buy emergence as not being something we can model.-Hope this helps you Tony in some understanding of my point of view. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them.


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