Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!uunet!tdatirv!sarima From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: emergence Message-ID: <37@tdatirv.UUCP> Date: 23 Oct 90 14:49:20 GMT References: <1990Oct4.152527.28413@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Oct4.173933.7319@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1990Oct5.170535.15023@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Oct20.005519.16055@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine Lines: 34 In article <1990Oct20.005519.16055@watdragon.waterloo.edu> cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes: >In article vinsci@soft.fi (Leonard Norrgard) writes: >>Actually, the computer system is emergent, given it is powered on and >>all parts working as they should. >Ouch! Your observation is an example of the very thing I was trying >to avoid! The properties of a computer system are (for the most part) >a direct result of design, so that most of its properties are simple >compositions of the properties of its parts, and thus uninteresting >in a discussion of emergence. Oh, so design denies emergence!?! That's the first I ever heard of that! In fact I would say just the opposite, *most* designed entities show emergent properties. Or do you think a random pile of transistors and wires would have the same properties as a computer? Of course not! It is the *organization* of the transistors and wires that gives the computer its properties, not the things themselves. Indeed the same components, organized differently, may have the properties of a radio, or a CD player, or an amplifier, or a audio mixer, or (many other things). Thus the properties of a computer are *not* simply the sum of th properties of its parts, and you cannot directly predict the properties of a computer from the properties of its parts (since the parts may be used in many other things). It is this 'independence' of system level properties from component level properties that constitutes emergence. This is why I say most designed systems are emergent - they generally are rely on organizational, system level structures to produce the desired properties. If they didn't, they would not need to be designed, they could just be built. (That is they would be obvious and easy to make) -- --------------- uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)