Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!tamuts!n025fc
From: n025fc@tamuts.tamu.edu (Kevin Weller)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: emergence
Summary: agreed
Message-ID: <8750@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 90 05:35:40 GMT
References: <3531@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
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Organization: Texas A&M University
Lines: 18

In article <3531@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mt@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael Travers) writes:
>It's interesting to note that some of the better work done on emergent
>properties comes from the group at Los Alamos that is interested
>specifically in NON-linear systems, that for one reason or another do
>not obey the superposition principle.  These people (such as Chris
>Langton, chair of the Artificial Life workshops) are very much NOT
>asserting that emergent properties are nonphysical or inherently
>inexplicable.  In fact, they rather make a fetish of insisting that
>complex properties like life or intelligence be modelled bottom-up in
>terms of simpler processes.  

I have come to agree with your definition of emergence as
methodological instead of metaphysical, at least in a practical sense.
See my response to Jonathan Buss for a more complete description.

>Michael Travers / MIT Media Lab / mt@media-lab.media.mit.edu

-- Kev