> On Jun 21, 9:25 pm, turtoni fastmail.net> wrote:
>

>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

>

>> Definitions
>> The concept behind the term has been in use since at least the time of
>> Aristotle.[1] John Stuart Mill and Julian Huxley are just some of the
>> historic luminaries who have written on the concept.

>

>> The term "emergent" was coined by the pioneer psychologist G. H.

>

>> Lewes, who wrote:

>

>> "Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant
>> forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their
>> difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every
>> resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are
>> homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when,
>> instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of
>> one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation
>> of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components
>> insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to
>> their sum or their difference." (Lewes 1875, p. 412)(Blitz 1992)

>

>> Professor Jeffrey Goldstein in the School of Business at Adelphi
>> University provides a current definition of emergence in the journal,
>> Emergence.(Goldstein 1999). For Goldstein, emergence can be defined
>> as: "the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns and
>> properties during the process of self-organization in complex
>> systems."(Corning 2002)

>

>> Goldstein's definition can be further elaborated to describe the
>> qualities of this definition in more detail:

>

>> "The common characteristics are: (1) radical novelty (features not
>> previously observed in systems); (2) coherence or correlation (meaning
>> integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some period of time);
>> (3) A global or macro "level" (i.e. there is some property of
>> "wholeness"); (4) it is the product of a dynamical process (it
>> evolves); and (5) it is "ostensive" - it can be perceived. For good
>> measure, Goldstein throws in supervenience -- downward
>> causation." (Corning 2002)

>

>> Strong vs. weak emergence
>> Emergence may be generally divided into two perspectives, that of
>> "weak emergence" and "strong emergence". Weak emergence describes new
>> properties arising in systems as a result of the interactions at an
>> elemental level. Emergence, in this case, is merely part of the
>> language, or model that is needed to describe a system's behaviour.

>

>> But if, on the other hand, systems can have qualities not directly
>> traceable to the system's components, but rather to how those
>> components interact, and one is willing to accept that a system
>> supervenes on its components, then it is difficult to account for an
>> emergent property's cause. These new qualities are irreducible to the
>> system's constituent parts (Laughlin 2005). The whole is greater than
>> the sum of its parts. This view of emergence is called strong
>> emergence. Some fields in which strong emergence is more widely used
>> include etiology, epistemology and ontology.

>

>> Regarding strong emergence, Mark A. Bedau observes:

>

>> "Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably
>> like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal
>> power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation
>> of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite
>> unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how
>> they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their
>> mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence
>> entails illegitimately getting something from nothing."(Bedau 1997)

>

>> However, "the debate about whether or not the whole can be predicted
>> from the properties of the parts misses the point. Wholes produce
>> unique combined effects, but many of these effects may be co-
>> determined by the context and the interactions between the whole and
>> its environment(s)." (Corning 2002) Along that same thought, Arthur
>> Koestler stated, "it is the synergistic effects produced by wholes
>> that are the very cause of the evolution of complexity in nature" and
>> used the metaphor of Janus to illustrate how the two perspectives
>> (strong or holistic vs. weak or reductionistic) should be treated as
>> perspectives, not exclusives, and should work together to address the
>> issues of emergence.(Koestler 1969) Further,

>

>> "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)

>

>> Objective or subjective quality
>> The properties of complexity and organization of any system are
>> considered by Crutchfield to be subjective qualities determined by the
>> observer.

>

>> "Defining structure and detecting the emergence of complexity in
>> nature are inherently subjective, though essential, scientific
>> activities. Despite the difficulties, these problems can be analysed
>> in terms of how model-building observers infer from measurements the
>> computational capabilities embedded in non-linear processes. An
>> observer’s notion of what is ordered, what is random, and what is
>> complex in its environment depends directly on its computational
>> resources: the amount of raw measurement data, of memory, and of time
>> available for estimation and inference. The discovery of structure in
>> an environment depends more critically and subtly, though, on how
>> those resources are organized. The descriptive power of the observer’s
>> chosen (or implicit) computational model class, for example, can be an
>> overwhelming determinant in finding regularity in data."(Crutchfield
>> 1994)

>

>> On the other hand, Peter Corning argues "Must the synergies be
>> perceived/observed in order to qualify as emergent effects, as some
>> theorists claim? Most emphatically not. The synergies associated with
>> emergence are real and measurable, even if nobody is there to observe
>> them." (Corning 2002)

>

>> Emergence in philosophy
>> In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a much stronger
>> claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent
>> property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property
>> of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system
>> as a whole. Nicolai Hartmann, one of the first modern philosophers to
>> write on emergence, termed this categorial novum (new category).

>

>> Emergent properties and 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.

>

>> One reason why emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the
>> number of interactions between components of a system increases
>> combinatorially with the number of components, thus potentially
>> allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. For
>> example, the possible interactions between groups of molecules grows
>> enormously with the number of molecules such that it is impossible for
>> a computer to even count the number of arrangements for a system as
>> small as 20 molecules.

>

>> On the other hand, merely having a large number of interactions is not
>> enough by itself to guarantee emergent behaviour; many of the
>> interactions may be negligible or irrelevant, or may cancel each other
>> out. In some cases, a large number of interactions can in fact work
>> against the emergence of interesting behaviour, by creating a lot of
>> "noise" to drown out any emerging "signal"; the emergent behaviour may
>> need to be temporarily isolated from other interactions before it
>> reaches enough critical mass to be self-supporting. Thus it is not
>> just the sheer number of connections between components which
>> encourages emergence; it is also how these connections are organised.
>> A hierarchical organisation is one example that can generate emergent
>> behaviour (a bureaucracy may behave in a way quite different from that
>> of the individual humans in that bureaucracy); but perhaps more
>> interestingly, emergent behaviour can also arise from more
>> decentralized organisational structures, such as a marketplace. In
>> some cases, the system has to reach a combined threshold of diversity,
>> organisation, and connectivity before emergent behaviour appears.

>

>> Unintended consequences and side effects are closely related to
>> emergent properties. Luc Steels writes: "A component has a particular
>> functionality but this is not recognizable as a subfunction of the
>> global functionality. Instead a component implements a behaviour whose
>> side effect contributes to the global functionality [...] Each
>> behaviour has a side effect and the sum of the side effects gives the
>> desired functionality" (Steels 1990). In other words, the global or
>> macroscopic functionality of a system with "emergent functionality" is
>> the sum of all "side effects", of all emergent properties and
>> functionalities.

>

>> Systems with emergent properties or emergent structures may appear to
>> defy entropic principles and the second law of thermodynamics, because
>> they form and increase order despite the lack of command and central
>> control. This is possible because open systems can extract information
>> and order out of the environment.

>

>> Emergence helps to explain why the fallacy of division is a fallacy.
>> According to an emergent perspective, intelligence emerges from the
>> connections between neurons, and from this perspective it is not
>> necessary to propose a "soul" to account for the fact that brains can
>> be intelligent, even though the individual neurons of which they are
>> made are not.

>

>> Emergent structures in nature
>> Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event or
>> rule. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern. Instead, the
>> interaction of each part with its immediate surroundings causes a
>> complex chain of processes leading to some order. One might conclude
>> that emergent structures are more than the sum of their parts because
>> the emergent order will not arise if the various parts are simply
>> coexisting; the interaction of these parts is central. Emergent
>> structures can be found in many natural phenomena, from the physical
>> to the biological domain. For example, the shape of weather phenomena
>> such as hurricanes are emergent structures.

>

>> It is useful to distinguish three forms of emergent structures. A
>> first-order emergent structure occurs as a result of shape
>> interactions (for example, hydrogen bonds in water molecules lead to
>> surface tension). A Second-order emergent structure involves shape
>> interactions played out sequentially over time (for example, changing
>> atmospheric conditions as a snowflake falls to the ground build upon
>> and alter its form). Finally, a third-order emergent structure is a
>> consequence of shape, time, and heritable instructions. For example,
>> an organism's genetic code sets boundary conditions on the interaction
>> of biological systems in space and time.

>

>> Non-living, physical systems
>> In physics, emergence is used to describe a property, law, or
>> phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but
>> not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system
>> can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems.

>

>> An emergent property need not be more complicated than the underlying
>> non-emergent properties which generate it. For instance, the laws of
>> thermodynamics are remarkably simple, even if the laws which govern
>> the interactions between component particles are complex. The term
>> emergence in physics is thus used not to signify complexity, but
>> rather to distinguish which laws and concepts apply to macroscopic
>> scales, and which ones apply to microscopic scales.

>

>> Some examples include:

>

>> Colour: Elementary particles have no colour; it is only when they are
>> arranged in atoms that they absorb or emit specific wavelengths of
>> light and can thus be said to have a colour.
>> Friction: Forces between elementary particles are conservative.
>> However, friction emerges when considering more complex structures of
>> matter, whose surfaces can convert mechanical energy into heat energy
>> when rubbed against each other. Similar considerations apply to other
>> emergent concepts in continuum mechanics such as viscosity,
>> elasticity, tensile strength, etc.
>> Classical mechanics: The laws of classical mechanics can be said to
>> emerge as a limiting case from the rules of quantum mechanics applied
>> to large enough masses. This may be puzzling, because quantum
>> mechanics is generally thought of as more complicated than classical
>> mechanics.
>> Statistical mechanics was initially derived using the concept of a
>> large enough ensemble that fluctuations about the most likely
>> distribution can be all but ignored. However, small clusters do not
>> exhibit sharp first order phase transitions such as melting, and at
>> the boundary it is not possible to completely categorize the cluster
>> as a liquid or solid, since these concepts are (without extra
>> definitions) only applicable to macroscopic systems. Describing a
>> system using statistical mechanics methods is much simpler than using
>> a low-level atomistic approach.
>> Patterned ground: the distinct, and often symmetrical geometric shapes
>> formed by ground material in periglacial regions.
>> Temperature is sometimes used as an example of an emergent macroscopic
>> behaviour. In classical dynamics, a snapshot of the instantaneous
>> momenta of a large number of particles at equilibrium is sufficient to
>> find the average kinetic energy per degree of freedom which is
>> proportional to the temperature. For a small number of particles the
>> instantaneous momenta at a given time are not statistically sufficient
>> to determine the temperature of the system. However, using the ergodic
>> hypothesis, the temperature can still be obtained to arbitrary
>> precision by further averaging the momenta over a long enough time.

>

>> Convection in a fluid or gas is another example of emergent
>> macroscopic behaviour that makes sense only when considering
>> differentials of temperature. Convection cells, particularly Bénard
>> cells, are an example of a self-organizing system (more specifically,
>> a dissipative system) whose structure is determined both by the
>> constraints of the system and by random perturbations: the possible
>> realizations of the shape and size of the cells depends on the
>> temperature gradient as well as the nature of the fluid and shape of
>> the container, but which configurations are actually realized is due
>> to random perturbations (thus these systems exhibit a form of symmetry
>> breaking).

>

>> In some theories of particle physics, even such basic structures as
>> mass, space, and time are viewed as emergent phenomena, arising from
>> more fundamental concepts such as the Higgs boson or strings. In some
>> interpretations of quantum mechanics, the perception of a
>> deterministic reality, in which all objects have a definite position,
>> momentum, and so forth, is actually an emergent phenomenon, with the
>> true state of matter being described instead by a wavefunction which
>> need not have a single position or momentum. Most of the laws of
>> physics themselves as we experience them today appear to have emerged
>> during the course of time making emergence the most fundamental
>> principle in the universe and raising the question of what might be
>> the most fundamental law of physics from which all others emerged.
>> Chemistry can in turn be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of
>> physics. Biology (including biological evolution) can be viewed as an
>> emergent property of the laws of chemistry. Finally, psychology could
>> at least theoretically be understood as an emergent property of
>> neurobiological laws.

>

>> Living, biological systems
>> Life is a major source of complexity, and evolution is the major
>> principle or driving force behind life. In this view, evolution is the
>> main reason for the growth of complexity in the natural world. If we
>> speak of the emergence of complex living beings and life-forms, we
>> refer therefore to processes of sudden changes in evolution.

>

>> Flocking is a well-known behaviour in many animal species from
>> swarming locusts to fish and birds. Emergent structures are a common
>> strategy found in many animal groups: colonies of ants, mounds built
>> by termites, swarms of bees, shoals/schools of fish, flocks of birds,
>> and herds/packs of mammals.

>

>> An example to consider in detail is an ant colony. The queen does not
>> give direct orders and does not tell the ants what to do. Instead,
>> each ant reacts to stimuli in the form of chemical scent from larvae,
>> other ants, intruders, food and build up of waste, and leaves behind a
>> chemical trail, which, in turn, provides a stimulus to other ants.
>> Here each ant is an autonomous unit that reacts depending only on its
>> local environment and the genetically encoded rules for its variety of
>> ant. Despite the lack of centralized decision making, ant colonies
>> exhibit complex behavior and have even been able to demonstrate the
>> ability to solve geometric problems. For example, colonies routinely
>> find the maximum distance from all colony entrances to dispose of dead
>> bodies.

>

>> A broader example of emergent properties in biology is the combination
>> of individual atoms to form molecules such as polypeptide chains,
>> which in turn fold and refold to form proteins. These proteins,
>> assuming their functional status from their spatial conformation,
>> interact together to achieve higher biological functions and
>> eventually create - organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems,
>> organisms. Cascade phenotype reactions, as detailed in Chaos theory,
>> may arise from individual genes mutating respective positioning.[4] In
>> turn, all the biological communities in the world form the biosphere,
>> where its human participants form societies, and the complex
>> interactions of meta-social systems such as the stock market.

>

>> Emergence in culture and engineering
>> Emergent processes or behaviours can be seen in many places, such as
>> traffic patterns, cities, political systems of governance, cabal and
>> market-dominant minority phenomena in politics and economics,
>> organizational phenomena in computer simulations and cellular
>> automata.

>

>> Economics
>> The stock market is an example of emergence on a grand scale. As a
>> whole it precisely regulates the relative security prices of companies
>> across the world, yet it has no leader; there is no one entity which
>> controls the workings of the entire market. Agents, or investors, have
>> knowledge of only a limited number of companies within their
>> portfolio, and must follow the regulatory rules of the market and
>> analyse the transactions individually or in large groupings. Trends
>> and patterns emerge which are studied intensively by technical
>> analysts.

>

>> World Wide Web
>> The World Wide Web (WWW) is a popular example of a decentralized
>> system exhibiting emergent properties. There is no central
>> organization rationing the number of links, yet the number of links
>> pointing to each page follows a power law in which a few pages are
>> linked to many times and most pages are seldom linked to. A related
>> property of the network of links in the world wide web is that almost
>> any pair of pages can be connected to each other through a relatively
>> short chain of links. Although relatively well known now, this
>> property was initially unexpected in an unregulated network. It is
>> shared with many other types of networks called small-world networks.
>> [citation needed]

>

>> Architecture and cities
>> Emergent structures appear at many different levels of organization or
>> as spontaneous order. Emergent self-organization appears frequently in
>> cities where no planning or zoning entity predetermines the layout of
>> the city. (Krugman 1996, pp. 9-29) The interdisciplinary study of
>> emergent behaviors is not generally considered a homogeneous field,
>> but divided across its application or problem domains.

>

>> Often architects and landscapers will not design all the pathways of a
>> complex of buildings. Instead they will let usage patterns emerge and
>> then place pavement where pathways have become worn in.

>

>> The on-course action and vehicle progression of the 2007 Urban
>> Challenge could possibly be regarded as an example of cybernetic
>> emergence. Patterns of road use, nondeterministic obstacle clearance
>> times, etc. will work together to form a complex emergent pattern that
>> can not be deterministically planned in advance.

>

>> Mathematics

>

>> A Möbius strip in mathematics demonstrates emergenceAlthough the above
>> examples of emergence are often contentious, mathematics provides a
>> rigorous basis for defining and demonstrating emergence. In Emergence
>> is coupled to scope, not level, Alex Ryan shows that a Möbius strip
>> has emergent properties (Ryan 2006). The Möbius strip is a one-sided,
>> one-edged surface. Further, a Möbius strip can be constructed from a
>> set of two-sided, three edged, triangular surfaces. Only the complete
>> set of triangles is one-sided and one-edged: any subset does not share
>> these properties. Therefore, the emergent property can be said to
>> emerge precisely when the final piece of the Möbius strip is put in
>> place. An emergent property is a spatially or temporally extended
>> feature – it is coupled to a definite scope, and cannot be found in
>> any component because the components are associated with a narrower
>> scope.

>

>> Pithily, emergent properties are those that are global, topological:
>> properties of the whole.

>

>> Language
>> It has been argued that language, or at least language change, are
>> emergence phenomena. While each speaker merely tries to reach his own
>> communicative goals, he uses language in a particular way. If enough
>> speakers behave in that way, language is changed (Keller 1994).

>

>> Fads and beliefs
>>  This article or section may contain original research or unverified
>> claims.
>> Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for
>> details. (October 2007)

>

>> An emergent concept (EC) is a slight variation on consensus reality
>> that is accepted as plausible. The hallmarks of an emergent concept,
>> as opposed to some categories of Internet memes/phenomena, urban
>> myths, or the like, are that EC are increasingly accepted as truth or
>> plausible, based upon other empirical or anecdotal evidence in the
>> mind of the believer or society (in its subsets) as a whole.

>

>> Emergence in political philosophy
>>  This article or section may contain original research or unverified
>> claims.
>> Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for
>> details. (September 2007)

>

>> Economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek wrote about emergence in the
>> context of law, politics, and markets. His theories are most fully
>> developed in Law, Legislation and Liberty, which sets out the
>> difference between cosmos or "grown order" (that is, emergence), and
>> taxis or "made order". Hayek dismisses philosophies that do not
>> adequately recognize the emergent nature of society, and which
>> describe it as the conscious creation of a rational agent (be it God,
>> the Sovereign, or any kind of personified body politic, such as
>> Hegel's state or Hobbes's leviathan). The most important social
>> structures, including the laws ("nomos") governing the relations
>> between individual persons, are emergent, according to Hayek. While
>> the idea of laws and markets as emergent phenomena comes fairly
>> naturally to an economist, and was indeed present in the works of
>> early economists such as Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, and Adam
>> Smith, Hayek traces the development of ideas based on spontaneous-
>> order throughout the history of Western thought, occasionally going as
>> far back as the presocratics. In this, he follows Karl Popper, who
>> blamed the idea of the state as a made order on Plato in The Open
>> Society and its Enemies.

>

>> Emergence in organisational theory
>> Emergence is referred to as the complex process whereby the right
>> person or idea emerges exactly at the right moment. Just when a
>> problem occurs or a necessity, the potential solutions also emerges

>
> Your discussion on emergence lacks the obvious. Hard to define, but
> one knows it when one sees it! :-).
>
> I reject the claim that there can be no emergence because a system
> cannot be more than the sum of its parts. I reject the argument that
> there can be no emergence in a process because it entails the
> impossible derivation of something from nothing and, therefore,
> whatever that something is must pre-exist the process. On this basis
> some make the claim that consciousness must be a ‘fundamental’
> attribute of inanimate energy/matter. This is the fallacy not yet
> known as “conflation of potentiality with actuality” :-)
>
> Any system can be more than the ‘sum’ of its parts. In the simplest
> case, a number (for example, 1.0 ) emerges from a set of different
> numbers when they are subjected to diverse mathematical manipulations
> other than and in addition to summation (is that iteration?). No
> amount of study of the emergent number can provide a clue as to the
> mathematical manipulations or the set of numbers from which it was
> derived.
> Thus, the impossibility of knowing how a function emerges disturbs me
> not in the least. I am satisfied that the emergent function of a
> system does not precede formation  of the system. But then, I am a
> plain man.
>
> Re the Mobius strip. I think that this 'mystery' is so overdone. There
> is no mysterious ‘emergence’ in the Mobius strip, it is topology.
> In reality, the edges of the strip have a finite dimension and form a
> rectangular cross-section. However, given neglible thickness, the
> abstract  strip has two sides and two edges. The Mobius manouver joins
> opposite ends of the astract strip after imparting a 180 degree twist
> (360/2).  And Lo! Two sides and two edges are reduced to one side and
> one edge. One side and one edge mystically disappear.(To be foraged by
> the likes of BofL?):-)
>
> Big deal! Now do the same with a flexible rod possessing a regular
> polygon cross-section (with n sides) but, instead of a 180 degree
> twist, introduce a twist of 360 degrees divided by n, the number of
> sides of the polygon.
>  Wow! The number of sides and edges that vanish into the mystic realm
> is n-1, leaving Mobius structures possessing only one side and one
> edge!.
>
> Thus, an appropriate twist ensures that each side runs into its
> neighboring side with each 360 degree revolution around these Mobius
> structures. Application of the Mobius manoever loses its mystic
> quality when it is applied to solid three-dimensional objects rather
> than to an non-existent, abstract two-dimensional strip.
> Let us get really mystical and pose the question- does a surface have
> thickness and, therefore, a two sides?
> Zinnic