Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!samsung!uunet!cscs!csmith From: csmith@cscs.UUCP (Craig E. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Emergent Properties Keywords: chaos, science, prediction Message-ID: <1990Nov2.103219.24132@cscs.UUCP> Date: 2 Nov 90 10:32:19 GMT References: <1990Oct12.214636.7945@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <30@tdatirv.UUCP> <1990Oct19.201604.7280@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <3369@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <1990Oct26.214354.11063@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <3383@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <1990Oct31.001104.22908@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1990Oct31.102704.18335@cscs.UU Organization: CS Computer Systems, Hudson, MA, USA Lines: 48 In <1990Nov1.204417.7120@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) writes: >One of Quine's premises is clearly that science is broadly defined. Like >Lakotose, he was a post WWII writer. I have trouble seeing logic as a science. >For example, where are the experiments that add new assertions >to the collected set that are not logically deducible from the existing set? >My own notion of "science" is inextricably linked to experimentation, and >there is none in logic. I'd like to replace Quine's "scientific activity" >by "research activity" in his paragraph and then I'd be quite happy with it. I have never heard anyone claim that all new scientific assertions must not be logically derivable from existing assertions. If a science is consistent, and well developed, I should think new assertions usually would be logically derivable. The experimentation in logic, as in mathematics, is in deriving hitherto unknown relationships from known "facts". The original basis for logic, and mathematics is real world experience, but they have been abstracted to the extent that they are virtually independent of the real world, and yet they are still consistent with it. The entire structure of logic, as well as mathematics, is based on axioms that have been arbitrarily defined by humans, but they are based on human observation in the first place. We can observe that one plus one equals two, but we accept axiomatically what one, two, plus and equals mean, just as the physicist accepts axiomatically the meaning of gravity, even though he can't show why it exists. The difference is that assertions of physics must be consistent with axioms derived from the physical world, which, as we learn more about the physical world, may change, whereas logic, and mathematics depend on predefined axioms that generally do not change. >Interestingly, there is never any emergence in logic. A new assertion does >not somehow emerge by virtue of some sort of critical mass of assertions. >At least not in logic. "Human logic" is probably a different matter. It seems to me that the idea of emergence (at least in the way I have most commonly seen the term used) is a lot like religion, a convenient way to explain things that are either too complicated, or about which we have too little information to adequately understand. If you think you have a system which is more than the sum of its parts, then probably you are either overlooking some of the parts, or you are arbitrarily defining an axiomatic property which coincides with the properties possessed by the system. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want a picture of the future, | Internet: csmith@cscs.UUCP imagine a boot stomping on a human | UUCP: ... uunet!cscs!csmith face - forever. - George Orwell |---------------------------------