Edmund Ronald and Moshe Sipper were proposing this back in '99:
@InProceedings{Ronald-etal99,
author = {Edmund M. A. Ronald and Moshe Sipper and Mathieu S.
Capcarr\`ere},
title = {Testing for Emergence in Artificial Life},
crossref = {Floreano-etal99},
pages = {13--20}
}
I don't think it is a true distinguishing characteristic, as an
emergent property remains emergent, even when it is no longer
suprising. But, as Ronald, et al point out, it can be a useful test.
Cheers
On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 12:35:56AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Glenn,
>
> You wrote:
>
> Was that conversation on this list? I'd like to go back and read it. A
> > Gmane search turned up nothing.
> >
>
> No, unfortuantely The Conferesation was at Friday Meeting two weeks ago.
> We have also been working also on a possiblity you raise, that emergence
> might actually be a stage in the transformation of understanding in PEEPLE.
> A form of surprise: As, "we say a phenomenon is emergent when what we know
> about the parts gives us no reason expect the form of the whole". So
> emegent does refer to something in the world, but only something as seen
> from a particular angle by a person with a particular history.
>
> am eagerly awaiting the reading of Eric Smith's post which I have not yet
> figured out how to extract from his message.
>
> Nick
>
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:03:55 -0700
> > From: "Glen E. P. Ropella" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] emergence as stop gap
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[email protected]>
> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > any phenomena that we all agreed were cases of emergence. I began to
> think
> > > we might fail in this way when one of us objected to the example of
> > > Hydrogen, Oxygen making water, which seemed to me about as emergent as
> > > something could get. At that point, we would still not be skunked,
> because
> >
> > Was that conversation on this list? I'd like to go back and read it. A
> > Gmane search turned up nothing.
> >
> > It's odd that one would think of water as emerging from hydrogen and
> > oxygen. A question for those who believe that is: "Then does that make
> > all molecules emergent?" There are plenty of complicated processes that
> > go into the construction of any molecule, many of those are more
> > complicated than water.
> >
> > I suspect the question above will seem to miss the point with many
> > Emergentists (Emergentites? Emergencies? ... hmmm). The point being
> > that emergence and perception are intertwined. Water is perceived in a
> > very different way than masses of hydrogen or oxygen are perceived by
> > humans. Many people who try to categorize "emergence" will attribute
> > this to some fundamental role of human expectations. But, I suspect a
> > worm, ant, or tree (were we able to communicate with them) would also
> > grok the difference between water and hydrogen, even without our
> > neocortex. This leads many others who like to categorize "emergence" to
> > talk of physical states of matter. Water, in massive aggregation, acts
> > one way. Water, in isolated molecules, acts another. Hence "emergence"
> > is defined in terms of some sort of composition operator (e.g. summation).
> >
> > In the end, it all boils down to whether or not a thing ("water" can be
> > a thing) acts or is acted upon as a unit, distinct from the actions (or
> > reactions) of the things around it or its constituents (water
> > molecules). Likewise, the water molecule acts different from the other
> > molecules around it and from its constituents. So, when considering
> > water, there are at least two levels of emergence.
> >
> > But, so what? Taken this way _everything_ is emergent. I even heard a
> > guy named Terry Bristol claim that the universe is a kind of emergent
> > cycle where the emergent things at the bottom emerge from the emergent
> > things at the top in a kind of ourboros. And that makes the word
> > "emergent" completely useless.
> >
> > - --
> > glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
> > Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
> > temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFGeU/rZeB+vOTnLkoRAhNTAKCcqrSzOEzUiqcE3gaukqcw6HEA4gCfQOdg
> > off7M1XNCmRaWnxMOBtnZuE=
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> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:24:50 -0600 (MDT)
> > From: Eric Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] reduction and emergence
> > To: [email protected]
> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Hi Nick and others on this thread,
> >
> > I have been reading this conversation for a while and debating whether to
> > post anything. If you will accept the caveat that I am not intending to
> > address all meanings of the word emergence in all contexts, please feel
> > free to read the attached if you have time to kill.
> >
> > I think there is still some clarity to be gained by understanding
> > carefully the classes of emergent phenomena recognized in statistical
> > mechanics, not because they are representative of everything, but because
> > they contain enough variation to help us clarify certain aspects of the
> > topic.
> >
> > The main assertion of the attached, which it may be too poorly written to
> > make obvious, is that the science of emergence should be understood as an
> > outgrowth of the science of compression, and this is what makes its
> > essence distinct from the particular sciences of many processes to which
> > the concept can be applied, and also distinct from the enterprise of
> > reductionism (not opposite, but orthogonal).
> >
> > I'm sure lots of people will object to lots of things, but that's okay.
> I
> > don't have any authority, so everyone can use anything or nothing as he
> > chooses.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >
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> >
> > End of Friam Digest, Vol 48, Issue 25
> > *************************************
>
>
>
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