Thanks Nick, a rather accurate depiction I think. But as the complaint displays, the fact that some individuals can see the perceptual problem, that people are more or less blind to emergence for some deep reason, does not in itself generate a solution, like learning how to see. That's what puzzles me about why absolutely no one asks me about my rigorous scientific method of identifying emergent systems as individuals and closely watching their evolving structures . Yea, well, it involves a slightly different set of questions. What would you expect! Learning questions is messier than learning answers perhaps. What I do is start by picking questions according to whether they can be answered. That's just more productive. Asking when where and how the animation of local events begins and ends is one of them. That turns out to be emergence, and I think all the disciplinary models fit as interpretations of that from different perspectives.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/> -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 12:39 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FRIAM] Emergence blindness as an Adaptive Trait All, particularly those in the Home Church. On Wednesday, we got into it about emergence and so I thought I would offer the attached file from a few years back, when the Bush administration was still an ugly rumor. . Here is the abstract, in case you aren't awash in free time. Nick ABSTRACT. We [me and two reluctant colleagues] hypothesize that, because human minds are ill prepared by natural selection to perceive emergence, the achievements of groups that arise from their good functioning as groups easily goes unnoticed. This perceptual flaw has been an obstacle for developmental science, as it has been for biologists who want to look at the productivity of groups as opposed to the productivity of the individuals that make them up. Humans tend either (1) to attribute the non-additive productivity of the group to one of its members, investing him or her with special powers of leadership, or (2 ) to invent an additional supernatural member of the group -- a spirit or god -- to account for its hyper-productivity. Either method of resolving the cognitive problem posed by emergence is likely to make the groups individuals more readily subject to the demands of group members who appear to embody or speak for the source of this hyper-productivity. Thus, selection at the group level will favor such cognitive misattributions because they make groups more coherent and enhance their emergent qualities. Nicholas S. Thompson Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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