Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu!smoliar
From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Emergence and Static Vs. Dynamic properties (was: Re: Another letter to the New York Review)
Message-ID: <12265@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 90 01:16:55 GMT
References: <67994@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 34

In article <67994@aerospace.AERO.ORG> abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J.
Abbott) writes:
>
>One obvious difference between most explicitly programmed levels of
>abstraction and most emergent systems is the degree of parallelism.  Is
>it likely that the abstractions we will have to develop to program
>highly parallel emergent systems will resemble in their discreteness
>those we now use to program traditional levels of abstractions.  Or will
>they necessarily be more statistical and hence always resemble
>"training" or environmental molding more than programming.

I'm not sure if this question was intended to be rhetorical, but I'd like to
invoke the old rabbincal trick of addressing it with another question.  Let
us consider the cellular automata of Conway's Life as a source of emergent
properties.  What sorts of abstractions would we need in order to describe
the consequences of starting with the R-pentomino?  (Obviously, the "raw"
rules of the cellular automata do not tell us what we need, since they cannot
tell one initial pattern from another.  Also, I chose the R-pentomino because
it eventually hits a stable state;  but only after some time.  Therefore, I do
not think describing that final state by itself constitutes a satisfactory
abstraction.  By the way, when you finish this one, I have this performance
by the Kronos Quartet in need of some abstraction . . . :-)  )

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