Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!jfbuss
From: jfbuss@maytag.waterloo.edu (Jonathan Buss)
Subject: Re: Emergent properties (was: What AI is exactly)
Message-ID: <1990Oct1.212639.24730@maytag.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <3894@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <26FA3460.1C7D@marob.masa.com> <3918@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <8581@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 90 21:26:39 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <8581@helios.TAMU.EDU> n025fc@tamuts.tamu.edu (Kevin Weller) writes:

>There are some highly ordered systems in nature with properties which can
>have no explanation that is solely dependent on the properties of the
>individual components of the system. ...
>
>Paul Davies puts it best when he asks if a Beethoven symphony is nothing
>but a collection of notes or if a Dickins novel is nothing more than a
>collection of words (*).  On one level of description, the novel is a
>collection of words, but is this all we need to know in order to fully
>appreciate it?  There is so much more depth to be found if we only step
>back and take in the bigger picture!  This is the origin of the phrase "the
>whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

A Dickens novel is a collection of words.  A Dickens novel being read
by someone, in a social context, with the possibility of discussing it
later, is something else.  Why should a whole be explainable as a sum
of some of its parts?  No one ever tries to explain computers in terms
of only AND gates.

Jonathan Buss