Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!nic!vinsci From: vinsci@soft.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: emergence Message-ID: Date: 18 Oct 90 22:37:39 GMT References: <3531@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct4.152527.28413@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Oct4.173933.7319@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1990Oct5.170535.15023@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Organization: Soft Service, Inc. Lines: 23 In-Reply-To: cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca's message of 5 Oct 90 17:05:35 GMT You wrote: >> An emergent property is a property of a system as a whole that is >> not possessed by any of its components. >> > > Yes, I guess the discussion is wandering. Your definition here is, I >believe open to alot of abuse, ie. trivial observations. For instance, >the keys I am hitting to produce this wondrous followup are part of the >computer system as a whole (or just my terminal - whatever). The fact >that the computer does not just behave like a big key, or switch etc... >is trivial, but then implies that its capability of adding and so forth >is emergent. Of course we would want to exclude such "observations" >from consideration, so the idea of emergent should be strengthened so >that the property of a system as a whole is also not an *obvious* >consequence of the properties of its components. Actually, the computer system is emergent, given it is powered on and all parts working as they should. Remove one part and it is no longer a working computer, ie. the emergence is gone. A simpler example: For a fire to start (and continue) you need three things: 1) material to burn 2) oxygen 3) heat. Combine them and fire emerges. Remove any one and it ends. The fire is not a property of any of the components.