Self-emergence? The God-didit of a secular worldview?

[Atheist-Lite]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change.

You don't understand it or you wouldn't have characterized it as a cop-out from exploring and explaining anything.

If you drop a box of buttons on the floor, and you mark the position of every button and then start randomly picking pairs of buttons and connecting them, how do you expect the number of buttons in the largest interconnected group varies as the ratio of strings to buttons?

It's not a straight line, not a linear function. It's an S-curve; it goes from the largest group being 0% with no strings, to the largest group being 10% of the buttons at 40% as many strings as buttons; but then, between 40% and 60% as many strings as buttons, it goes from 10% being the largest group to 90% being the largest group.

This is an average behavior; the more buttons, the closer you will get to this exact behavior. If you repeat the experiment many times (with a computer, nobody's stupid enough to actually do this with buttons and strings), you will again get closer and closer to this exact behavior. It is unexpected; most people expect a smooth curve from 0% to 100% with maybe some deviation at one or both ends, not this wild shit in the middle. But that's how the real world is.

The details of how populations evolve are intimately connected with this S-curve phenomenon, as it turns out.

That's emergent self-organization, to give the phenomenon its proper appellation. I always think it's more credible to actually know something about what you're talking about before you start talking about it, for example how to refer to it.

Just sayin'.

Yes, but I wouldn't learn anything if it was all stuff I read out of books and then parroted back. I'm sure statistics can give a appearance of order to pure chaos. I don't care for the subject myself, it is easy to get wrong, over-simplify and look for patterns and find those you are looking for in the first place.

[Schneibster]

Ah. That makes more sense. This was the subject of Kauffman's The Origins of Order, which is yet another book I own yet have not read. The first few chapters discussing the nature of spin glasses and similar phenomenon (such as magnetization of a ferric body cooled from a high temperature) was certainly tantalizing. Alas, we must all make choices, and for my own, I have chosen not to devote the effort necessary to attaining competence on scientific matters. (Although people like Schneibster waving pretty baubles such as decoherence and the fluctuation theorem in front of me results in gnawing pangs at my heart which are most difficult to resist.) If there were only more time, or at least the discipline to use what one has wisely. Alas, for me, it is not to be.

Kauffman is the right person to mention in connection with that explanation; I totally stole it from him. He uses it in At Home In the Universe, which focuses on how the laws of complexity (of which the above button/thread scenario illustrates but one) determine the emergence of life, and the way that life as we know it evolves. I cannot recommend it highly enough; make reading it a higher priority than The Origins of Order, if you care for my recommendation. Everyone should know how overwhelmingly likely it is that, given this planet with these chemicals on it at this distance from a star, life should develop. It is practically inevitable, Kauffman argues. This has implications on Fermi's Paradox and the Drake Equation, particularly with most stars in our neighborhood probably having planets.

[Schneibster]

Yes, but I wouldn't learn anything if it was all stuff I read out of books and then parroted back.

Errrrmmmm, you seem unclear on the concept of "learning."

I'm sure statistics can give a appearance of order to pure chaos.

No, actually, they can't.

I don't care for the subject myself, it is easy to get wrong, over-simplify and look for patterns and find those you are looking for in the first place.

It's certainly easy to pretend scientists have. Fundies pretend it all the time.

[Atheist-Lite]

Yes, but I wouldn't learn anything if it was all stuff I read out of books and then parroted back.

Errrrmmmm, you seem unclear on the concept of "learning."

I'm sure statistics can give a appearance of order to pure chaos.

No, actually, they can't.

I don't care for the subject myself, it is easy to get wrong, over-simplify and look for patterns and find those you are looking for in the first place.

It's certainly easy to pretend scientists have. Fundies pretend it all the time.

All these graphs and numbers carry subtle cognitive & cultural biases outside the range of reason. The 'modern' scientific worldview appears to be leading to the technology which is making a planet unihabitable. It doesn't have to be this way?

[Schneibster]

All these graphs and numbers carry subtle cognitive & cultural biases

Point the biases you allege exist out.

I have been having this exact conversation on the Internet since 1992. Never, ever, not once has anyone been able to show such alleged biases. Never. Not even close.

A very few people who alleged them have admitted it. Hope you're one.

[Atheist-Lite]

All these graphs and numbers carry subtle cognitive & cultural biases

Point the biases you allege exist out.

I have been having this exact conversation on the Internet since 1992. Never, ever, not once has anyone been able to show such alleged biases. Never. Not even close.

A very few people who alleged them have admitted it. Hope you're one.

You are right. I haven't anything else to say. I realise my mistake. I have confused the common notion of self-emergence with the precise scientific concept. The scientific concept of 'self-emergence' appears more to do with a step change in a non-linear system than something appearing out of nowhere. Is that right? You can see how the mistake is readily made?

[Schneibster]

All these graphs and numbers carry subtle cognitive & cultural biases

Point the biases you allege exist out.

I have been having this exact conversation on the Internet since 1992. Never, ever, not once has anyone been able to show such alleged biases. Never. Not even close.

A very few people who alleged them have admitted it. Hope you're one.

You are right. I haven't anything else to say. I realise my mistake. I have confused the common notion of self-emergence with the precise scientific concept. The scientific concept of 'self-emergence' appears more to do with a step change in a non-linear system than something appearing out of nowhere. Is that right? You can see how the mistake is readily made?

Since I was not aware of a difference between the common notion and the precise scientific concept (and actually, most of what you've said that was wrong was not scientifically but mathematically wrong), I can't really answer without more information. I have come across what I would call the common notion of it in a few recent science fiction books, notably City of Angels and Slant by Greg Bear and A Deepness In the Sky by Vernor Vinge, but they differed from Kauffman's and the other chaos guys' only in the level of detail. A quiet revolution is occurring across biology as we start to find emergent properties in DNA, as well. Emergence, and spontaneous order, are in fact revolutionizing quite a few ways we think, and likely will change the ways we think about physics, too, once they've had a chance to percolate in the life sciences for a while. Chaos has already caused one revolution in the physical sciences, after all. So I certainly don't doubt that there is some "popular notion" of emergence; please detail it more, and maybe point to some sources, preferably on the 'Net so I don't have to buy anything, being a cheap old bastard.

I can at least critique the "common notion" by comparing it with as much as I know of the more precise definition, which may or may not be useful for what you intend.

[Atheist-Lite]

All these graphs and numbers carry subtle cognitive & cultural biases

Point the biases you allege exist out.

I have been having this exact conversation on the Internet since 1992. Never, ever, not once has anyone been able to show such alleged biases. Never. Not even close.

A very few people who alleged them have admitted it. Hope you're one.

You are right. I haven't anything else to say. I realise my mistake. I have confused the common notion of self-emergence with the precise scientific concept. The scientific concept of 'self-emergence' appears more to do with a step change in a non-linear system than something appearing out of nowhere. Is that right? You can see how the mistake is readily made?

Since I was not aware of a difference between the common notion and the precise scientific concept (and actually, most of what you've said that was wrong was not scientifically but mathematically wrong), I can't really answer without more information. I have come across what I would call the common notion of it in a few recent science fiction books, notably City of Angels and Slant by Greg Bear and A Deepness In the Sky by Vernor Vinge, but they differed from Kauffman's and the other chaos guys' only in the level of detail. A quiet revolution is occurring across biology as we start to find emergent properties in DNA, as well. Emergence, and spontaneous order, are in fact revolutionizing quite a few ways we think, and likely will change the ways we think about physics, too, once they've had a chance to percolate in the life sciences for a while. Chaos has already caused one revolution in the physical sciences, after all. So I certainly don't doubt that there is some "popular notion" of emergence; please detail it more, and maybe point to some sources, preferably on the 'Net so I don't have to buy anything, being a cheap old bastard.

I can at least critique the "common notion" by comparing it with as much as I know of the more precise definition, which may or may not be useful for what you intend.

I have no intention with my posts much of the time. Just see where my thinking takes me. Guess I'm interested in which of my memes replicate successfully and which don't....if there is a ulterior motive that is it.

[Schneibster]

Well, you keep throwing 'em out and I'll keep hittin' 'em, and if one bounces off the wall we'll keep track of it.

[Schneibster]

I can trim your notion of emergence a bit more: something appears as if out of nothing; it's not really literally out of nothing, it's just out of something unseen or previously unknown. When you speak of emergence, you'll find the concept of self-organization being spoken of by others while discussing it; self-organization is emergent organization, that is, a type of emergence. If you drop steel balls into a bucket, they will naturally form layers, with one layer nesting into the interstices of the next. This is called "closest spherical packing," and it is the emergent order of the geometry of the steel balls and the fact that they are contained within a regular solid (generally a parallelepiped or truncated cylinder, since those are the shapes of most containers). That is emergence, in the baldest sense.

[Jonesboy]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change. So when things are 'self-emergent' either in nature, mathematics or science can someone think about and ask what isn't being explained? That simply because I say A follows B doesn't mean there are not a number of sub-processes necessary for A to follow B without A becoming C or remaining A? I've tried to explain my point of view here in a general way. Self-emergence is a way of 'not thinking' about things that get in the way of a potentialy harmful over-simplistic explanation of some phenomana.

What the hell do you mean by selfemergence?

[Atheist-Lite]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change. So when things are 'self-emergent' either in nature, mathematics or science can someone think about and ask what isn't being explained? That simply because I say A follows B doesn't mean there are not a number of sub-processes necessary for A to follow B without A becoming C or remaining A? I've tried to explain my point of view here in a general way. Self-emergence is a way of 'not thinking' about things that get in the way of a potentialy harmful over-simplistic explanation of some phenomana.

What the hell do you mean by selfemergence?

Shit happens. You go for a crap and shit happens.

[Jonesboy]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change. So when things are 'self-emergent' either in nature, mathematics or science can someone think about and ask what isn't being explained? That simply because I say A follows B doesn't mean there are not a number of sub-processes necessary for A to follow B without A becoming C or remaining A? I've tried to explain my point of view here in a general way. Self-emergence is a way of 'not thinking' about things that get in the way of a potentialy harmful over-simplistic explanation of some phenomana.

What the hell do you mean by selfemergence?

Shit happens. You go for a crap and shit happens.

Sounds like a big load of bolocks to me. i inhale, and a genius comes out. But who cares? No-one. Thats life. So write here and be slain, as others have before you. Nibbling is noit professuiobal wresting, Be warned,

[apophenia]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change. So when things are 'self-emergent' either in nature, mathematics or science can someone think about and ask what isn't being explained? That simply because I say A follows B doesn't mean there are not a number of sub-processes necessary for A to follow B without A becoming C or remaining A? I've tried to explain my point of view here in a general way. Self-emergence is a way of 'not thinking' about things that get in the way of a potentialy harmful over-simplistic explanation of some phenomana.

What the hell do you mean by selfemergence?

Shit happens. You go for a crap and shit happens.

Sounds like a big load of bolocks to me. i inhale, and a genius comes out. But who cares? No-one. Thats life. So write here and be slain, as others have before you. Nibbling is noit professuiobal wresting, Be warned,

Try typing with both hands on the keyboard next time.

[JimC]

I'm not keen on self-emergence as a concept. It seems a bit of a cop-out from exploring and explaining the intricate processes of radical change. So when things are 'self-emergent' either in nature, mathematics or science can someone think about and ask what isn't being explained? That simply because I say A follows B doesn't mean there are not a number of sub-processes necessary for A to follow B without A becoming C or remaining A? I've tried to explain my point of view here in a general way. Self-emergence is a way of 'not thinking' about things that get in the way of a potentialy harmful over-simplistic explanation of some phenomana.

What the hell do you mean by selfemergence?

Shit happens. You go for a crap and shit happens.

Sounds like a big load of bolocks to me. i inhale, and a genius comes out. But who cares? No-one. Thats life. So write here and be slain, as others have before you. Nibbling is noit professuiobal wresting, Be warned,

Try typing with both hands on the keyboard next time.

The topic is certainly an interesting one. I am a little bit of a fence sitter. Some people I have read have used the concept in a "smoke and mirrors" sense, as Crumple described in his OP, simply using it as a lazy excuse not to look at the boring reductionist details which are there if you look closely.

However, considered in a broad sense, it is using the appropriate tools of analysis at the correct level. Natural selection is an emergent property of replicating systems in a variable environment, in that sense. Saying that does not obviate the mechanistic causal connections down to the molecular level, but it does provide a valuable position from which to observe interesting patterns. And if Kauffman and others are right, then the possible arrangements of replicators are influenced by other emergent patterns before selection itself gets its teeth into them...