Glen, My colleagues have already told you what the assignment is, so what follows is little more than spin.
In our attempts to understand what is going on in this tangled literature, we have come up with only one way to characterize the different views of emergence that seems to endure more than a week: that is the epistemological vs ontological distinction. Hempel and Oppenheim fall soundly on the epistemological side. For them, a characteristic of on object is emergent relative to a theory and relative to a particular list of part attributes when that characteristic cannot be deduced from the part attributes using that theory. So, to say that a property is emergent is only to say something about the state of our theory with respect to the data we have already gathered. Dennett seems to come down in the middle of our distinction. His argument concerns what beliefs are REALLY. His answer -- that beliefs are really features of the world as seen from a point of view -- implies a position on the nature of emergence. Like Hemple and Oppenheim, Dennett would concede that seeing emergence requires one to take a point of view.... a STANCE, if you will. But taking that stance is like looking through binoculars ... it may limit your field of vision, but it also tells you something that is true of the world. In fact, every stance tells you something that is true of the world. A personal note: those who tried to follow my ravings concerning Holt and the New Realism this summer wont be surprized to hear me say that Dennett is sounding awfully like a New Realist. See you Thursday at 4pm. Sorry for duplicate posting. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <[email protected]> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Date: 10/5/2009 9:38:53 AM > Subject: [FRIAM] emergence seminar: what's next? > > > What's next on the reading list? > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 ============================================================ 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
