Quoting Ron Kulp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > [Platt] > > It's the view of current science I find lacking in explanatory power, > like attributing what can't be explained to "emergence" and "chance." > > [Ron] > I do not see emergence as "chance" so to speak. What I read of it, it > describes evolution in > terms of Pirsigs levels. This is why I'm drawn to the idea.
Pirsig identifies a cause for the emergence of the levels -- Dynamic Quality or the "moral force." As far as I can tell, the quotes below the Pirsig quote do not assign a cause to "emergent properties." Those emergents just "appear." Further, there's no question that Darwinian evolution and its later spin offs rely on chance, both in mutations and changes in the environment, to produce new critters. (Pirsig) > "In this plain of understanding static, patterns of value are divided > into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social > patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all > there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics - Inorganic, > Biological, Social and Intellectual - nothing is left out. No 'thing,' > that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any > encyclopedia, is absent. > But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive. > They all operate at the same time and in ways that are almost > independent of each other. > This classification of patterns is not very original, but the > Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual. > It says they are not continuous. They are discreet. They have very > little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a > lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the > contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the > lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own > purposes. > This observation is impossible in a substance-dominated metaphysics > where everything has to be an > extension of matter. But now atoms and molecules are just one of four > levels of static patterns of quality and there is no intellectual > requirement that any level dominate the other three."-Pirsig (lila > chpter 12) > > > [edit] Emergent properties & processes > "An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of > simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex > behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size > scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different > scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in > systems with emergent properties. The processes from which emergent > properties result may occur in either the observed or observing system, > and can commonly be identified by their patterns of accumulating change, > most generally called 'growth'. Why emergent behaviours occur include: > intricate causal relations across different scales and feedback, known > as interconnectivity. The emergent property itself may be either very > predictable or unpredictable and unprecedented, and represent a new > level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are > not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be > predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities: they > are irreducible. No physical property of an individual molecule of air > would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit > sound. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds[1] or shoal of fish > are also good examples." > > "The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not > imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the > universe..The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted > with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of > complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied > biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole > becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its > parts."(Anderson 1972)-wiki ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
