Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekgen!penguin.uss.tek.com!decomyn From: decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Emergent properties (was: What AI is exactly) Message-ID: <6632@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM> Date: 29 Sep 90 05:06:21 GMT References: <3894@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <26FA3460.1C7D@marob.masa.com> <3918@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <8581@helios.TAMU.EDU> Sender: news@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM Reply-To: decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com (Vergil William de Comyn) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 20 In article jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy) writes: >I'm suspicious that "emergent" is just a fancy term for the fact >that any system has some properties that are not properties of >the components. Actually, this is close. It would be more correct to say that an "emergent" is a propery of a system that can not be extrapolated from a simple understanding of the components of the system. (The EXOR gate you constructed in your example could be predicted from knowing the properties of the other gates in the system) My favorite example of an emergent property involves aqua regia, a combination of hydrochloric and nitric acids. Now, neither of the component acids will significantly affect gold; however, the combination dissolves it easily. This property was not predictable from knowing the properties of either the acids or of the gold; it is an "emergent" result. Brendt Hess decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com Disclaimer: Opinions? I don't even *work* here!