> The question was: Is there any identifiable property of a
> system that is NOT an emergent property, regardless of
> how one defines "system"?  If anyone knows of one,
> please name it!

1. The number of components in a Newtonian N-body system.  In the study of 
complex systems, the number of components is frequently a critical system 
property.  It is, however, entirely divorced from the properties of the 
components or relationships among them.

2. A weaker one: the mass of a Newtonian N-body system.  While it depends on 
component masses, it is independent of interaction among components.

Regards,
Rikus

--------------------------------------------------
From: "glen e. p. ropella" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 7:16 PM
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Emergence and explanation

Thus spake Nick Thompson circa 09-07-07 06:08 PM:
> Well, If you read a textbook the physics text that we did a bit this
> year you find out that system is defined as anything you happen to be
> looking at.  So any bunch of stuff would be a system.  But any bunch
> of stuff does not display emergent properties. So on that account you
> would be wrong.

Well, since my post consisted of questions, I could hardly be wrong. ;-)

The question was: Is there any identifiable property of a system that is
NOT an emergent property, regardless of how one defines "system"?  If
anyone knows of one, please name it!

Yes, I am _partly_ asking so that I can subsequently analyze that
example and demonstrate that whatever example is provided, it can be
thought of as "emergent".  I'm also genuinely interested in the examples
list members might assert are non-emergent properties.  Honestly, I
can't think of any.
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