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Towards a Logical Definition of Emergence [video]

by aarroyoc on 11/14/23, 9:58 PM with 13 comments

  • by mjburgess on 11/17/23, 1:38 PM

    This 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).

  • by reliablereason on 11/17/23, 9:17 AM

    Emergence 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.

  • by motohagiography on 11/17/23, 2:26 PM

    What 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.