On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 03:22:38PM -0700, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > I say _apparent_ because it's easy to confuse complication with > complexity. Complexity, in my view, requires intra-system operators > formulated with intra-system languages that are incommensurate with the > language of the most fundamental mechanisms, where the result of > applying these operators is part of the mechanism. So, complexity is > the result of intra-system operators formulated in a language that > doesn't match the language expressing the mechanism, producing a part of > the mechanism, i.e. a causative cycle with lexical mismatch between some > parts of the cycle.*+ >
> [*] Note that this is subtly different from Russell Standish's > definition of "emergence", which doesn't seem to require the > circularity. However, I'm not quite a Rosenite in that I believe > circularity (causal closure) is necessary but not sufficient. The > lexical mismatch is also necessary. > It is true that I don't see causal loops as necessary for emergence. I suspect they might be sufficient though, provided they are non-trivial (cannot be collapsed). I recognise my definition of emergence is probably the most liberal definition that still means something. Stronger emergent concepts exist, of course, such as Bedau's weak emergence. So what you're proposing sounds to me just like a stronger notion, possibly even akin to Bedau's strong emergence. I give an example of a loopy structure in my book (page 162) which I think is an example of strong emergence. One trouble you will have is that not everybody accepts causal loops, ie they would posit that all causal loops can be explained by (reduced to) a non-loop structure with the causal direction coming from the lowest levels. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
