On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 08:21:08PM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote: > Wow, I post a question, go on a 6-hour hike and this is what I come back > to... > > I still don't feel that I've got a straight answer to my question, other > than Doug's (which I suspect is the most accurate) and Russ's (which I > really hope isn't true). So let me try again: once I've established that a > phenomenon is emergent by using a yet-to-be developed metric (Owen's > formalism) or philosophic enquiry (Nick's & other's approach) - then what? > > In fact, let's not limit ourselves to the present situation (because I > suspect that the current answer is simply "Nothing. Identifying emergence is > an end in it's own right"). What would you *like* to be able to do once > you'd attached the "emergent" label to a phenomenon? What's your best case, > your grand vision? Imagine the best of all possible worlds and tell me: what > would you want to be able to do once that "emergent" label gets attached? > > -- Robert
My very short answer is "compute the (informational) complexity of the emergent thing". That's what I want to do. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
