Is it time to do the Political Compass test again?

[Ludwig]

I can't quite understand how a universe which started off witgh just bits of matter and energy ended up with self-interest, enlightened or not,
Peter.

It's called emergent behaviour. A feature of complex systems.

I must admit that I find emergence a rather unsatisfactory concept - something new appears and the explanation is that it can't be explained by what was already there. It's more like the opposite of explanation.

(It's put rather better here in the wiki:

Regarding strong emergence, Mark A. Bedau observes:

"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."(Bedau 1997)

).


Peter.

I think I agree. Emergence involves the appearance of complex patterns from the combination of: (i) a simple initial pattern; (ii) a set of rules on processing the pattern iteratively through time; and (iii) the actual passage of time.

But has anything complex really emerged? Surely the complexity was inherent in the initial conditions, insofar as the passage of time was one of the initial conditions? (Of course to talk of initial conditions is a bit misleading here: "ground conditions" might be a better phrase.) One is left with the mystery of how time unfolds at all.

There is also a fundamental difference between mathematical emergence and the actual emergence of life and consciousness in the universe. Given a set of initial conditions, a mathematically emergent pattern is in principle entirely predictable. However, as far as we can tell, physics is at bottom only statistically predictable; and tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to entirely different outcomes.

Furthermore, a pattern is a holistic concept. For example in the Mandelbrot Set, none of the pixels has any conception of a pattern it is part of: the pattern can only really be said to exist by reference to an onlooking consciousness that sees the whole thing.

All of this is still to disregard the fundamental problem of qualia: the subjective, irreducible sensations of perception. Define the colour blue however you like, but you will never produce the colour blue with your definitions: you will never be able to show a creature that can't perceive blue what blue actually is.

[Ludwig]

What about 'do what the hell you want, just don't harm others'.

That is a pretty passive, weak-livered and solipsistic kind of morality IMO, and it doesn't even work.

Solipsistic? The opposite, I'd say. The first half can't work otherwise. It also implies having a conscience. Passive? Are you sure we're using the same language? Weak? The reason people don't even try to follow such a philosophy is because of the opposite (again). It's too difficult.

Maybe we're not using the same language. I suppose my use of "solipsistic" was not quite right: one must have a conception of others to avoid harming them. I really meant it in terms of a lack of actual empathy with others: one doesn't go out of one's way to be good to others: one's priority is following one's own drive towards self-gratification. Consideration of others is a qualification, not a first principle.

[Blue Peter]

I must admit that I find emergence a rather unsatisfactory concept

So you've not played John Conway's Game of Life?

I have indeed. The most recent occasion being on a touch sensitive "table" at the Open University's open day, kept the children amused for ages.

However, I don't believe that anything emerges in the Game of Life. Rather, we project "entity-ness" onto the patterns which we see. Ask yourself this, could you "program" the Life universe in terms of the new entities which emerge, such as gliders? I don't believe that you can. You would have to go back to the individual cells and program in terms of them, since gliders don't really (ontologically) exist in the Life universe,


Peter.

[emordnilap]

That is a pretty passive, weak-livered and solipsistic kind of morality IMO, and it doesn't even work.

Solipsistic? The opposite, I'd say. The first half can't work otherwise. It also implies having a conscience. Passive? Are you sure we're using the same language? Weak? The reason people don't even try to follow such a philosophy is because of the opposite (again). It's too difficult.

Maybe we're not using the same language. I suppose my use of "solipsistic" was not quite right: one must have a conception of others to avoid harming them. I really meant it in terms of a lack of actual empathy with others: one doesn't go out of one's way to be good to others: one's priority is following one's own drive towards self-gratification. Consideration of others is a qualification, not a first principle.

And I think come unstuck, in the end, with the over-population problem. That really buggers things up.

[emordnilap]

Anyone read "Erehwon"?

I've just started reading The Way of All Flesh and so far it's pretty good, I like it, so I'll be onto Erewhon (sic) next. Unless, of course, you're talking about a book called Erehwon.

[biffvernon]

But has anything complex really emerged?

Yes. I have.

(Well, I reckon I'm pretty complex.)

[Blue Peter]

I think I agree. Emergence involves the appearance of complex patterns from the combination of: (i) a simple initial pattern; (ii) a set of rules on processing the pattern iteratively through time; and (iii) the actual passage of time.

But has anything complex really emerged? Surely the complexity was inherent in the initial conditions, insofar as the passage of time was one of the initial conditions? (Of course to talk of initial conditions is a bit misleading here: "ground conditions" might be a better phrase.) One is left with the mystery of how time unfolds at all.

I think that, at least in computer simulations, the complexity is actually within the processing environment within which the very simple system sits. In comparison with the computer running it, the game of life is rather insignificant.

There is also a fundamental difference between mathematical emergence and the actual emergence of life and consciousness in the universe. Given a set of initial conditions, a mathematically emergent pattern is in principle entirely predictable. However, as far as we can tell, physics is at bottom only statistically predictable; and tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to entirely different outcomes.

Furthermore, a pattern is a holistic concept. For example in the Mandelbrot Set, none of the pixels has any conception of a pattern it is part of: the pattern can only really be said to exist by reference to an onlooking consciousness that sees the whole thing.

Indeed, what are patterns ontologically? If they are just something projected by our consciousness, then fundamental explanations in their terms must fail.

All of this is still to disregard the fundamental problem of qualia: the subjective, irreducible sensations of perception. Define the colour blue however you like, but you will never produce the colour blue with your definitions: you will never be able to show a creature that can't perceive blue what blue actually is.

Indeed.


Peter.

[Blue Peter]

But has anything complex really emerged?

Yes. I have.

(Well, I reckon I'm pretty complex.)

You are, indubitably. The question is whether "emergence" refers to that which caused your complexity,


Peter.