Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: emergence Message-ID: <6@tdatirv.UUCP> Date: 5 Oct 90 15:37:30 GMT References: <3531@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct4.152527.28413@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Oct4.173933.7319@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine Lines: 39 In article <1990Oct4.173933.7319@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> r-reinke@uiuc.edu (Robert Reinke) writes: >... Though we are naturally interested >in emergent properties in computer programs/systems, I believe there >is a definition of emergence that need not refer to computers per se, namely: > > An emergent property is a property of a system as a whole that is > not possessed by any of its components. An excellent definition. It is broadly applicable, and does not imply dualism. >An example of this (from an introductory Neurobiology course) is a system of >neurons in the crayfish (lobster? -- some crustacean in any case) which has >an output that is cyclic over time. None of the neurons in the system have a >cyclic output behavior independently, nor can the cyclicity be attributed to >any individual relationships; only the system has a whole has cyclic behavior. An excellent example. I would like to add a note of emphasis here. In this case I suspect that the neurobiologists involved in the research have a fairly good, essentially complete model of how the system of neurons in question generates cyclic output. That is the behavior of the system is *not* inexplicable, it is merely not inherent in the individual neurons. And even though it is explained it is *still* emergent. BTW, I suspect that the emergent property here is also somewhat independent of the lower level implementation. It is likely that a finite state machine (or set of them) could be designed that was cyclic by essentially the same mechanism. >Under this definition, "mind" or "intelligence" may be called an emergent >property of the brain, not becaused it has no relationship to the brain or >its components, but because it is a property of the brain (and body?) as a >whole. I would agree. And in fact it is probably emergent in almost the same way as the cyclicity mentioned above. That is it is based on interactions amoung populations of neurons, each of which performs some basic data transformation. ------------------ uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)