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From: n025fc@tamuts.tamu.edu (Kevin Weller)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: emergent properties
Summary: somewhat agree
Message-ID: <8745@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 90 05:17:01 GMT
References: <1990Sep29.213139.2876@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
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In article <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>....................  But suppose also that some capricious God
>imposed one extra, arbitrary law: whenever three stars form an
>equilateral triangle, then they simply disappear.  That would appear,
>to a classical physicist, to be an "inexplicable emergent" -- until it
>was added as a new law of nature.

True, but I might question how declaring a new 'law' "explains"
anything.  It does from the practical standpoint of relative levels of
abstraction, but it might not in any "absolute" sense.

My definition of emergence has undergone a slightly pragmatic change.
See my reply to Jonathan Buff for more on this.

Regards -- Kev