4 ms·

Emergent structures have the property of being possible to generalize about and simulate to some extent by simpler means than the modeling of their most fundame

by pierrec 11y ago

Emergent structures have the property of being possible to generalize about and simulate to some extent by simpler means than the modeling of their most fundamental components. When this is not the case, it means the large scale result of the fundamental components is chaotic. But if such a chaos were to characterize any given scale of any universe, intelligent life at that scale would be impossible. When the author asks, "How can the same sorts of simple equations keep appearing at every scale of nature that we look for them?", my (perhaps simplistic) answer is that if chaos were to entirely characterize a given scale, that scale would be too remote from ours to be observable. Chaos would be the barrier to observation. So, I would venture that emergence as we observe it in the universe is not that surprising or miraculous, but inevitable. Though I may be wrong and/or not the first to provide this "explanation".

Retra 11y ago
"Emergence" is such a useless word. Everything is emergent. Temperature is the emergent consequence of small-scale particle motions. Orbits are the emergent consequence of particles moving in potential wells. Intelligence is the emergent consequence of neuron chemistry. Traffic is the emergent consequence of driver's goals. It's especially irritating because people like to say things like this: "Emergent structures have the property of being possible to generalize about and simulate to some extent by simpler means than the modeling of their most fundamental components. When this is not the case, it means the large scale result of the fundamental components is chaotic." Our brains require abstractions to function because our brains are subsets of reality. You simply cannot pack all of existence into your brain to conceive the whole thing at once. So everything -- every perceivable phenomenon or relation that exists in any possible experience -- is going to be modeled. This means that there does not exist anything that "when broken into its components" is made of fewer abstract components than the whole. That's contradictory nonsense. Which means you can't assume that "when it happens," you'll get a chaotic universe (or whatever you meant by that.) It's got nothing to do with scale, since choosing to call one thing 'fundamental' and another an 'emergent whole' is no less of an abstraction that swapping them around. You could just as easily say the motion of particles is an emergent property of the temperature of the whole, and you'd be no less wrong about it. It's a dualistic relation. Which makes "emergence" a pointless concept. There is no "absolute simple" for you to take as a fundamental abstraction from which other things emerge. And I'm pretty sure the concept has never actually been used to solve a single problem. Not even hypothetically.

by pierrec 11y ago

Retra 11y ago

"Emergence" is such a useless word. Everything is emergent. Temperature is the emergent consequence of small-scale particle motions. Orbits are the emergent consequence of particles moving in potential wells. Intelligence is the emergent consequence of neuron chemistry. Traffic is the emergent consequence of driver's goals. It's especially irritating because people like to say things like this: "Emergent structures have the property of being possible to generalize about and simulate to some extent by simpler means than the modeling of their most fundamental components. When this is not the case, it means the large scale result of the fundamental components is chaotic." Our brains require abstractions to function because our brains are subsets of reality. You simply cannot pack all of existence into your brain to conceive the whole thing at once. So everything -- every perceivable phenomenon or relation that exists in any possible experience -- is going to be modeled. This means that there does not exist anything that "when broken into its components" is made of fewer abstract components than the whole. That's contradictory nonsense. Which means you can't assume that "when it happens," you'll get a chaotic universe (or whatever you meant by that.) It's got nothing to do with scale, since choosing to call one thing 'fundamental' and another an 'emergent whole' is no less of an abstraction that swapping them around. You could just as easily say the motion of particles is an emergent property of the temperature of the whole, and you'd be no less wrong about it. It's a dualistic relation. Which makes "emergence" a pointless concept. There is no "absolute simple" for you to take as a fundamental abstraction from which other things emerge. And I'm pretty sure the concept has never actually been used to solve a single problem. Not even hypothetically.