Complexity

"Tim Tyler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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Jim Menegay at [email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04

2:44 PM:

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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Cosma Shalizi offers some criticism of the whole idea -

and winds up

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offering a purely mem

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And, I think that the whole field of "complexity" is

plagued by bad

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choices of terminology and some very, very bad

intuitions.

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Furthermore, I don't see the situation as likely to

improve when

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books can be sold by coining meaningless, but

evocatative, phrases

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such as "the edge of chaos". IMO.

"Edge of chaos" is much more than a catchy phrase. Do

you know what it

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means in this context?

"Edge of chaos" *is* an evocative phrase.

However... subsequent researchers generally failed to

confirm Langton's

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suggestion that the location might be of interest in terms

of being a

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particulary attractive spot for performing computations -

and his Lambda

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parameter hasn't actually proved to be of much use :-(

etic explanation for the existence of the phrase:

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``Given that that the opinion of specialists was never

unanimous behind

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?life at the edge of chaos,? and there is every

possibility it?s wrong,

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why was this idea picked up by some segments of educated

opinion and

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adopted? ? even adopted pretty widely; I seem to recall

Al Gore making

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some hay with the notion, and hearing that it was being

touted by

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management witch-doctors. The obvious answer is that it

fits nicely with

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some wide-spread prejudices: basically, antinomianism, a

dislike of

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rules and rigidity and formality, a positive relish for

rule-breaking.''

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-

cscs.umich.eduedge ofOpen ↗
chaos.html

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However... I have to number myself as among those who

thinks that

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there really /is/ something to Langton's intuitive idea

;-)

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"Self-organised criticality" (e.g. the

pile-of-sand/landslide effect)

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is the simplest way I know to clearly illustrate to

sceptics that

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there really /is/ something to the notion that complex

systems can

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tend to migrate towards the "edge" of zones where chaotic

behaviour

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arises.

Perhaps another example of such "Self-organised criticality"
(or at least a similar idea) that is easier to rationalize
is the formation of substances into different allotropic
forms when stressed by differing environmental conditions
such as temp., pressure, or other energy constraints--the
formation of water into several different forms of ice, or
carbon into graphite, diamond, or buckeyballs/tubes, are
beautiful examples of compounds or elements "evolving" under
stress to go from one quantitatively changing-properties-
regime, through transition points, into another,
qualitatively different regime, then so on into others
(allotropes having radically different properties such as
structures, densities, etc., etc.)

Transition points can easily be seen as points on the edge
of chaotic boundarys of specific phase diagrams. In fact,
they can be viewed as characteristic of many different types
of phase changes...even the evolution of a massive star into
a neutron star, or black hole, under the influence of
gravity may be considered the same type process. Evolution
and change...and then more evolution... Quite a beautiful
universal process in a way, one which blends order,
complexity, and chaos, all together. ...tonyC

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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Jim Menegay <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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E.g. these days we know the patterns on zebras have at
least as much to do with reaction-diffusion
equations as they do with natural selection.

Under which definition of complex/complexity do you
think that zebra patterns are complex? [snip]

Now you're trying to get me to give a binary definition of
complexity ;-)

Actually, I was hoping that you would continue to adhere to
Kolmogoroff, but back down from your claim that Zebra
stripes are complex. After all, you do have a simulator of
reaction-diffusion on your WEB site, which presumably can
generate zebra striping patterns given a few simple
parameter choices. The whole point of Kolmogoroff is to show
that some things that naively seem complex when viewed
descriptively are actually simple when viewed as the output
of an algorithm.

in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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TV-screen static has very large Kolmogorov complexity -
but shows not the slighest hint of self-organising
processes.

I'm not disagreeing, exactly, but I can't resist pointing
out that your example suggests yet another ambiguity in
the concept of complexity. Wolfram's book contains many
pictures of something that looks a lot like TV static that
were generated by very simple algorithms. That is very low
Kolmogorov complexity.

This is a great point. I hate to do this, but, I want to
argue that these relations are more complicated that
suggested here. It is a central observation in the
complexity literature that simple rules at one scale of
organization can lead to unforeseen (some argue
unforeseeable in principle, but I disagree) emergence of
structure/process at large scales of organization. How all
of this related to Kolmogorov complexity (KC) depends on
what aspects of the system you are measuring. Jim focused on
the simple rules, which do not change in this scenario.
Hence, KC for the system does not evolve from this point of
view. If, however, you measure KC using data on the
structure of the system, then it can and does evolve. In
fact, it changes suddenly and coincidently with the
emergence of higher order structure/function. I can't recall
at the moment whether the structural KC jumps up or down
when emergence occurs.

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I understand that your point was that a particular
instance of TV static probably cannot be generated by a
simple algorithm. But then, who is interested in the
complexity of a particular instance?

Second (hopably amusing) point: Ever wonder what happens
if you point a video camera at a TV screen which is being
fed from the camera? I have seen it claimed that
(depending on the zoom) this is an example of self
organization.

Interesting. This seems to set up a visual analog to
feedback in a sound system, which manifests when you point a
microphone at a speaker. I often use auditory feedback as an
example of natural selection in an abiotic system, and I see
natural selection as a mechanism of self-organization; so
your suggestion makes perfect sense to me.

Guy

Hi Jim,

in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/28/04 2:44 PM:

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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...
> While you and I come to different conclusions, or
> speculations, on the prospects for a coherent theory of
> complex systems, I agree with you that there are some
> key conceptual links that must be hammered out before
> complexity theory should become taken for granted.
> AFAIK nobody has yet proven (or argued convincingly)
> that there is a consistent set of necessary and
> sufficient conditions for the emergence of complexity.

IMO, no one has given a sufficiently clear definition of
either "emergence" or "complexity" so that it even makes
sense to talk about necessary and sufficient conditions.

I disagree. I suspect that the confusion resides more in
your mind than in scientific communication within the
complexity community. I don't mean this as an insult. It
is our responsibility to make these terms clear to those
who see their meanings as vague.

Here is a resource regarding some of the meanings of
"complexity" as used within the scientific community.
santafe.eduCompOpen ↗
lexityMeasures.pdf I think that each of these meanings
has been adequately made clear. What has not been made
clear on this thread is which of these meanings the
poster is using.

That link appears to be dead at this point, but I think I
tracked it down under a new URL at SFI. If I found the right
page, it was written by Murray Gell-Mann and Jim
Crutchfield, and it was more about the diversity of proposed
measures of complexity than about the concept itself. In
support of my comment, I did not have much difficulty in
speaking with Gell-Mann about complexity during my
sabbatical at SFI. On the other hand, I found that
Crutchfield was less comfortable talking about the concept
without specifying a particular measure.

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For example, you are now using "emergence" in a sense
which is totally different from the sense in which I had
paraphrased Bar-Lev as using it as the distinguishing
characteristic of a complex system.

I presume you meant "Yaneer Bar-Yam", rather than
Bar-Lev.

You are right, of course. My mistake.

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I have know Yaneer for years, and our views and semantics
are very closely aligned on these issues. Again, your
suspicion that we are at odds seems to result from a
combination of our lack of precision in describing our
views and the way you perceive our descriptions.

No, it was my lack of precision that caused you to suspect
that I suspect... I was not accusing you of using
"emergence" incorrectly. I was just pointing out that
there are two meanings to the word.

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You seem to be using "emergence" to mean a process of
change occuring in time.

Yes. Emergence is a process and all processes
fundamentally depend on the temporal dimension.

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But I was using it to describe a relationship between
the descriptive properties of a system and the
descriptive properties of its subsystems.

This is closer to the meaning of complexity, although it
lacks the critical aspect of interaction structure among
the parts defining the topology of the network.

Yes. Bar Yam defines a "complex system" as one which has
"emergent properties". And, if you check the Wilkipedia
article on "emergence" you will discover that you are
directed to "emergent properties", but "emergence" is
defined as a process - as you would prefer.

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Time does not appear at all in my sense of the word
"emergence", which is, I think, the standard one in this
context.

I am certain that the standard use of emergence in this
context requires a temporal dimension. I don't think that
I have ever seen it used to represent a static pattern.

Check this (another example appears below):
llk.media.mit.eduemergenceOpen ↗

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From this website:

"In this essay, we will explore the idea of emergence. We
will examine how objects and patterns can arise from simple
interactions in ways that are surprising and counter-
intuitive."

I think that they are also asserting the centrality of the
temporal dimension in the notion of emergence.

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If one wishes to study the "emergence" (your sense) of
"complex systems" (Bar-Lev's sense), then one is looking
at the emergence of emergence!

[snip]

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And, to add to the confusion, one must recognize that
there are two different ways that this can happen. The
obvious way is that the emergent property of the system
is a novelty - that property simply didn't exist before.

[snip]

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The less obvious way is that the property itself is not
new - the novelty is that this property becomes
classifiable as emergent.

This implies a view that is strongly at odds with my
understanding of complex systems. All properties of
everything in the universe emerged. Can you give me an
example of a property that you think did not come into
existence in an emergent way? [snip]

Sure. Have you perhaps noticed that some of the paragraphs
that I have written in this thread are "skeptical",
"sarcastic", or even "obnoxious"? You may have even
noticed that some of the sentences had these properties.
But I'll bet that you won't find any words with those
properties, and I'm sure I didn't type any letters or
punctuation marks with those properties. These are
emergent properties at the sentence level.

Skepticism, sarcasm, and obnoxiousness are semantic
properties for which all underlying structure resides in our
brains. Our association of these properties with sentences
does in fact emerge through the information processing in
our brains.

Still, I think I now see your point. I agree that emergence
can be, and is, used variously in referring to qualities
(properties), patterns, processes, and dissipative
structure/processes. I also agree that this is unfortunate
and should be made clear. Examples that I would use of
quality emergence, the category in which I would put your
example, include the observation that pressure cannot be
defined for a single particle. It is a quality that can only
be defined for a population of particles. In my view, the
term "emergence" should not be used to describe this
observation. It is a consequence of the way we conceptualize
"pressure", rather than something that happens in a natural
system. This confusion comes about in part from the fact
that new qualities also emerge coincidentally with new
structures/processes.

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But note! I had the idea of being skeptical, sarcastic, or
obnoxious even before I broke my thought into sentences
and my sentences into words.

If that example doesn't satisfy you, how about a
biological example. Imagine a species of prairie rodents
inhabiting the American Great Plains from Mexico to
Canada. Imagine that the average size varies with
latitude. In fact, a regression coefficient tieing the
latitude to the size of the rodent is a property of the
species. Now, imagine that the species breaks up into a
collection of distinct subspecies, perhaps due to the
construction of East-West highways. But within each
subspecies, there is not any correlation of latitude with
size. The regression of size against latitude has become

an emergent property. As I said:

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This might happen because the system evolves so as to
become sufficiently differentiated that subsystems can
be recognized.

My main point here is that sloppy use of terminology
leads to misleading intuitions.

I may have lost the point of the thread here. I though we
were focusing on whether emergence generally means a kind of
process that must unfold over a window of time (my view).
This example seems to fit nicely into my view. Are you
implying that spatial clines and subspecies manifest
instantly? I don't see how this example suggests either
conceptual ambiguity or semantic inconsistency with regard
to "complexity."

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As does "sloppy" listening.

Well, sloppy listening leads to misleading intuitions only
if one believes what one hears. I rarely do that ;-)

I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I was only suggesting
that you may be perceiving sloppiness in the use of the
term "complexity" that does not exist so much among those
using the term.

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And, I think that the whole field of "complexity" is
plagued by bad choices of terminology and some very,
very bad intuitions. Furthermore, I don't see the
situation as likely to improve when books can be sold by
coining meaningless, but evocatative, phrases such as
"the edge of chaos". IMO.

"Edge of chaos" is much more than a catchy phrase. Do you
know what it means in this context?

Yep! I know several things that it means. See my reply to
Wirt. Incidentally, I'm curious as to whether Wirt's
proposed meaning is the one you had in mind. When I
described this phrase as "meaningless", I had in mind the
fact that (like "complexity"😉 it means different things
to different people. A word or phrase with too many
meanings is just as useless for scientific communication
as a word with no meanings. On the other hand, it IS
useful in poetry.

I understand. This may be a case of a scientific phrase that
is unfortunately poetic. Wirt's comments are entirely in
line with my understanding of the phrase. I would add that I
think Per Bak pushed the concept too far in the sense that
complexity is not limited to systems that have reached the
edge of chaos. Rather that seems to be the location in phase
space that unconstrained complex systems tend to (sensu a
strange attractor). I would point to the work of Carlson and
Doyle on "highly optimized tolerance" for an example of
rigorous modeling that illustrates the behavior of complex
adaptive systems constrained away from the edge of chaos.

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Incidentally, while preparing this post, I browsed the
website of the Santa Fe Institute and discovered some
quotes from a couple of biologists that I really respect.
I believe that I endorse their viewpoints regarding
"complexity" in general and the Santa Fe version of it in
particular.

Me, too. I don't want to ask you for examples of those you
don't "really respect", but I suspect that you would be
blown away by the list of scientists involved with SFI. You
might be interested in browsing at the following link:
<http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/indexPeople.html>.

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The first is from a review of a debate between Maynard
Smith and Kauffman:ttp://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Bulletins/bulletin-
spr95/12debate.html

Towards the end of question time, Maynard Smith suggested
that his real problem with a lot of complexity theory is
that it fails to ground itself in reality. Maynard Smith:
"My problem with Santa Fe, is that I can spend a whole
week there... and not hear a single fact." Kauffman: "Now
that's a fact!"

Kauffman's name is closely tied to SFI in the minds of many,
but the reality is that he hasn't spent much time there for
several years. In fact, I would say that the views at SFI,
in general, have diverged significantly from the ones that
Kauffman advocates. Bak's claims for "the edge of chaos" are
also viewed pretty skeptically by most scientists there.

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The second quotes Robert May about SFI: sant-sant-Open ↗
afe.edu/sfi/publications/Bulletins/bulletinSummer01/fea-
tures/ma
y.html

"The Institute was created as a better understanding of
the relation between simplicity and complexity in
nonlinear systems emerged," he says. "It saw itself as
maybe the place that could help articulate what replaces
the simplistic Newtonian dream. That was a pretty large
thing to take on: the boldness with which that vision has
been articulated has contributed to all the attention SFI
received." This attention tended to become polarized, he
says, between uncritical admiration on the one hand and
disparagement on the other, "neither of which reflects
the much more interesting and richly textured reality of
the place."

So where does May stand? "I'm an enthusiast for the idea,"
he says, "but a rather analytic critic for what is an
accomplishment and what is charismatic blather."

I looked over the SFI people website because I thought that
May had developed an official relationship there. However, I
did not find his name. I am certain, however, that he has
been there a few times. My impression is that he shares the
same perspective as the folks at SFI. This is the right
direction, and we need to maintain a balance between rigor
and creativity if we are to succeed in establishing
complexity science (if that is a reasonable term).

Guy

Jim Menegay <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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TV-screen static has very large Kolmogorov complexity -
but shows not the slighest hint of self-organising
processes.

I'm not disagreeing, exactly, but I can't resist pointing
out that your example suggests yet another ambiguity in
the concept of complexity. Wolfram's book contains many
pictures of something that looks a lot like TV static that
were generated by very simple algorithms. That is very low
Kolmogorov complexity.

I understand that your point was that a particular
instance of TV static probably cannot be generated by a
simple algorithm. But then, who is interested in the
complexity of a particular instance?

I used TV static as an example of a random process.

Not just particular instances are very noisy - so is the
whole stream.

If you don't like the example, pick another process with a
heavy random element. Radioactive decay, for example. Or
diffusion of gas particles. Or thermal noise. Or the way
raindrops hit the street...

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Second (hopably amusing) point: Ever wonder what happens
if you point a video camera at a TV screen which is being
fed from the camera? I have seen it claimed that
(depending on the zoom) this is an example of self
organization.

Like most Dr Who fans, I don't have to wonder - and indeed
(also probably like most Dr Who fans) I have performed the
experiment in person ;-)
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Jim Menegay <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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Jim Menegay <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

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> E.g. these days we know the patterns on zebras have
> at least as much to do with reaction-diffusion
> equations as they do with natural selection.

Under which definition of complex/complexity do you
think that zebra patterns are complex? [snip]

Now you're trying to get me to give a binary definition
of complexity ;-)

Actually, I was hoping that you would continue to adhere
to Kolmogoroff,

OK - let's pretend for a moment that I did that ;-)

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but back down from your claim that Zebra stripes are
complex. After all, you do have a simulator of reaction-
diffusion on your WEB site, which presumably can generate
zebra striping patterns given a few simple parameter
choices. [...]

Yes - but although you *can* produce striped patterns from a
few simple parameters, the *actual* pattern produced depends
on the entire initial state of the reaction-diffusion system
in addition.

In other words, faced with a particular zebra, to reproduce
the patterns on it might need a fairly detailed description
of the initial state of the system - as well as just the reaction-
diffusion parameters.

You could create a broadly-similar looking zebra from a
simple ordered set of starting conditions - but if we are
using Kolmogoroff complexity, we are (presumably) working in
a discrete domain and we need to reproduce the pattern we
are measuring exactly.

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The whole point of Kolmogoroff is to show that some things
that naively seem complex when viewed descriptively are
actually simple when viewed as the output of an algorithm.

I'd say reaction-diffusion patterns are somewhat
intermediate between (say) Mandelbrots (highly ordered) and
noise (highly disordered) in that respect.

Some have simple descriptions, but others may only arise
from starting conditions of the fluid fields that are rather
laborious to specify.

I'll grant that many zebra patterns have considerable
regularity and "compressiblilty" - and thus may not be as
complex as all that.

We can't really use Kolmogoroff complexity as a metric for
zebra stripes, though. Zebra stripes are not digital.

Kolmogorov complexity in biology works best on things that
are discrete (or nearly so) e.g. the genetic program (give
or take a bit of methylation).
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Tim,

in article [email hidden], Tim Tyler at
[email hidden] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

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in article [email hidden], Tim Tyler
at [email hidden]

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Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler at [email hidden] wrote on 4/27/04 2:32 PM:

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>> If biological relevance is your criterion, "self-
>> organising systems" are the main bit of "complexity
>> theory" of interest.
>>
>> They present alternative explanations for the
>> existence of complex structures to natural selection.
>
> No, no, no! This is a nasty misconception, which is
> causing knee-jerk dismissal of complexity theory among
> many evolutionary biologists. Natural selection IS a
> mechanism of self-organization. I agree that there are
> other mechanisms of self-organization that are
> important in biology, but it is misleading to imply
> that natural selection somehow represents an
> explanation that is mutually exclusive to self-
> organization.

I don't think I said what you seem to think I did.

I agree that natural selection IS a mechanism of self-
organization.

I agree that there are other mechanisms of self-
organization that may be significant in biology.

I fail to see much sign of any disagreement that might
have prompted the "No, no, no!"

*If* I had claimed that natural selection and self-
organization were mutually exclusive you would have a
point - but I never said any such thing.

Thanks for clearing this up. I'm sorry for my over-
reaction.

I have found that most evolutionary biologists that I
talk to have the kind of misconception I described above.
While I am glad that we actually share a common
understanding on these issues, I am pretty sure that most
evolutionary biologists would interpret the statement
"They [self-organizing systems] present alternative
explanations for the existence of complex structures to
natural selection" as a confrontation to Darwinism. I
think we should strive for clarity that avoids this kind
of misinterpretation.

"Self-organisation" /is/ in conflict with what is
characatured as "panadaptionism" - the idea that most
prominent features of organisms exist because they are
favoured by selection.

Sure. I would argue that this idea is itself at odds with
what Darwin wrote. It is an oversimplified cartoon.

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There are other self-organising forces *besides* natural
selection.

Yes.

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They are responsible for things like animal patterning,
tree-shaped structures, drainage patterns and the
development of the brain.

Sure, but this concept is also not an alternative to natural
selection. In fact, as several authors have pointed out
(e.g., see Camazine et al., "Self-organization in biological
systems), natural selection should generally favor the
efficiency afforded to genetic encoding of the phenotype by
using simple rules to manifest macroscopic patterns.

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Natural selection may get the final say - but the
generation of variation /often/ involves alternatives that
can be easily produced.

It may be quite reasonable to say that a branching tree
was one of the early variations formed - because there was
a short sequence of developmental instructions that led to
it and the sequence could easily be reached by mutation.

The idea that simple instruction sequences produce apparently-
complex, patterened and purposeful-looking results is well
known to those interested in fractals and cellular
automata.

I agree with all of this, and I fail to see how it is in
conflict even with "panadaptationism."

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It may be that processes like those play significant roles
in development - and that those are the processes we
should invoke as primary explanations for the observed
phenomena (rather than saying natural selection is
responsible).

Or we can recognize the absence of conflict among these
ideas and attribute responsibility to all of them
simultaneously. This approach is routine under the logic of
hierarchical systems, but anathema to the more linear,
traditional framework for scientific thought.

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Wolfram probably takes this "anti-selectionism" the
furthest:

``For while natural selection is often touted as a force
of almost arbitrary power, I have increasingly come to
believe that in fact its power is remarkably limited.''

Yeah. He also takes the right path without stopping before
going off the deep end, IMHO. I've actually seen more
extreme statements (e.g., a paper by Emlen et al. from about
1994 published in Chaos), but I can't put my hands on them
right now. Such logically misinformed and over the top
statements have done a lot of harm IMHO.

Guy

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

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There are other self-organising forces *besides* natural
selection. They are responsible for things like animal
patterning, tree-shaped structures, drainage patterns and
the development of the brain.

I agree.

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Natural selection may get the final say - but the
generation of variation /often/ involves alternatives that
can be easily produced.

(snip)

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It may be that processes like those play significant roles
in development - and that those are the processes we
should invoke as primary explanations for the observed
phenomena (rather than saying natural selection is
responsible).

Why should the fact that evolution is constrained by physics
imply that we should invoke physics as a "primary
explanation"?

Quoted message said:

Wolfram probably takes this "anti-selectionism" the
furthest:

``For while natural selection is often touted as a force
of almost arbitrary power, I have increasingly come to
believe that in fact its power is remarkably limited.''

- S.W. A.N.K.O.S., p.392.

This statement seems to me to miss the mark on the nature of
natural selection. Natural selection is not important
because of its power, but because of its single-mindedness.
It doesn't need to have much power, it only needs to have
time. As long as the basic conditions hold, you can only get
improvement. Now you can not tell how much improvement - the
power is not in fact "arbitrary". The question of how much
improvement is more dependent on historical factors such as
drift and physical and chemical constraints. That is not the
point. The point is to build on previous success.

Yours,

Bill Morse

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Tim Tyler at [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Natural selection may get the final say - but the
> generation of variation /often/ involves alternatives
> that can be easily produced.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> It may be quite reasonable to say that a branching
> tree was one of the early variations formed - because
> there was a short sequence of developmental
> instructions that led to it and the sequence could
> easily be reached by mutation.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> The idea that simple instruction sequences produce
> apparently- complex, patterened and purposeful-
> looking results is well known to those interested in
> fractals and cellular automata.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I agree with all of this, and I fail to see how it is
in conflict even with "panadaptationism."

Quoted message said:

The characature of a panadaptationist will tend to look
at the order created by a self-organising system and
tend to invent adaptive explanations for the existence
of that order.

Quoted message said:

E.g. rather than answering the question of why legs of a
centipede are all the same by invoking the fact
that they are all generated by the same small
simple program, the panadaptationist will tend to
suggest that centipede legs are all the same so
that each leg fits in exactly with the stride of
the leg in front of it - and no toes get stepped
on.

Quoted message said:

Explanations in terms of small developmental programs
don't occur to our characatured panadaptationist -
because he thinks that natural selection is the answer
to all biological problems involving structure and form.

But - to play devil's advocate, because I tend to agree
with you - what if our caricatured (to keep Josh happy
note the spelling) panadaptationist were to say that the
developmental genes that led to segmentation got
selected over other alternatives during the Cambrian
explosion precisely because they made it easier for
coordinated motion?

In my example, the caricatured panadaptationist's argument
certainly has some truth to it. If legs of differing - or
alternating - shape proved to be adaptive, then maybe nature
would have discovered the fact by now.

...but the form of the argument is not always right:

Natural selection based on the phenotype - and the founder
effect - are not the only valid forms of explanation for
observed traits.

Sometimes it is best to look at the form of the genetic
program that results in the feature - and ask how simple,
neat, flexible and maintainable it is - and how likely it
was to have been chanced upon by mutations - and produce
that as your explanation.

Of course there are many other things going on as well in
nature. For instance, something designed for one purpose
often turn out to have other uses. My computer makes a
workable doorstop. A letter box can be used to view
prospective visitors on the doorstop.

Gould give the example of flight to illustrate this point:

stephenjaygould.orggould functionalOpen ↗
shift.html
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It may be that processes like those play significant
roles in development - and that those are the processes
we should invoke as primary explanations for the
observed phenomena (rather than saying natural selection
is responsible).

Why should the fact that evolution is constrained by
physics imply that we should invoke physics as a "primary
explanation"?

Sorry if my statement was unclear. I meant this only in some
cases. In other cases natural selection will be the primary
explanation. In yet other cases it may be necessary to
invoke the founder effect as the main cause of certain
phenomena.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Wolfram probably takes this "anti-selectionism" the
furthest:

``For while natural selection is often touted as a force
of almost arbitrary power, I have increasingly come to
believe that in fact its power is remarkably limited.''

- S.W. A.N.K.O.S., p.392.

This statement seems to me to miss the mark on the nature
of natural selection. Natural selection is not important
because of its power, but because of its single-
mindedness. It doesn't need to have much power, it only
needs to have time. [...]

I'm probably guilty of quoting Wolfram out of context.
Picking one of his more extreme sentences may give a
distorted impression of his argument - which is generally
not an unreasonable one.

Certainly I share many of Wolfram's intuitions about not
even the billions of years available being enough for
natural selection to be able to "design" very much in the
way of complex systems - and since self-organising systems -
of the type that can arise from short and simple
developmental programs - generate ordered complex structures
in great abundance, they are a natural explanation for much
of the observed complexity in nature.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay
at [email hidden] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

Responding to just a few scattered points:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Here is a resource regarding some of the meanings of
"complexity" as used within the scientific community.
santafe.eduCompOpen ↗
lexityMeasures.pdf I think that each of these meanings
has been adequately made clear. What has not been made
clear on this thread is which of these meanings the
poster is using.

That link appears to be dead at this point, but I think I
tracked it down under a new URL at SFI. If I found the
right page, it was written by Murray Gell-Mann and Jim
Crutchfield, and it was more about the diversity of
proposed measures of complexity than about the concept
itself. In support of my comment, I did not have much
difficulty in speaking with Gell-Mann about complexity
during my sabbatical at SFI. On the other hand, I found
that Crutchfield was less comfortable talking about the
concept without specifying a particular measure.

My apologies. I keep forgetting that not everyone can browse
to .pdf files. For your future convenience, may I suggest
that a good thing to do when a pdf link is provided that you
cannot read, try moving up one level in the URL - in this
case to: santafe.edututorialsOpen ↗
Had you done so, you would have found both pdf and
postscript links to the paper I was suggesting. However, I
am glad that you did not know this, because it gave you the
opportunity to tell me how easy it is to talk to Murray.

Quoted message said:

[regarding "emergence" and "emergent properties"] Examples
that I would use of quality emergence, the category in
which I would put your example, include the observation
that pressure cannot be defined for a single particle. It
is a quality that can only be defined for a population of
particles. In my view, the term "emergence" should not be
used to describe this observation. It is a consequence of
the way we conceptualize "pressure", rather than something
that happens in a natural system. This confusion comes
about in part from the fact that new qualities also emerge
coincidentally with new structures/processes.

Your suggestion that "emergence" should not be used in an
epistemological sense, but only in a physical sense, is
understandable. After all, the nontechnical uses of the word
convey the notion of a physical process occuring in time.
However, you should be aware that the epistemological
technical use of the word has a long history: plato.stanford.edupropertiesOpen ↗
emergent/ But more relevant to the present discussion is the
use of the word as a slogan by "General Systems Theory".
This was an interesting intellectual movement, better known
in the past generation, from which the modern "complexity"
movement has inherited terminology, aura, and stigma. The
main gurus were von Bertalanfy, Boulding, and Koestler.
These authors based much of their anti-reductionist stance
on the observation that, as a system is synthesized in a "bottom-
up" direction, new properties "emerge" at the higher levels.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts. A "holistic"
viewpoint is needed. Or, saying the same thing, as a system
is analyzed in a "top-down" direction, something is lost.
Hence, reductionism is suspect, according to GST.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Imagine a species of prairie rodents inhabiting the
American Great Plains from Mexico to Canada. Imagine
that the average size varies with latitude. In fact, a
regression coefficient tieing the latitude to the size
of the rodent is a property of the species. Now, imagine
that the species breaks up into a collection of distinct
subspecies, perhaps due to the construction of East-West
highways. But within each subspecies, there is not any
correlation of latitude with size. The regression of
size against latitude has become an emergent property.

As I said:

> This might happen because the system evolves so as to
> become sufficiently differentiated that subsystems can
> be recognized.

I may have lost the point of the thread here. I though we
were focusing on whether emergence generally means a kind
of process that must unfold over a window of time (my
view). This example seems to fit nicely into my view.

I thought we had moved beyond that focus, though, looking
back through the thread, I can see that I was incorrect.
Several posts ago, I suggested that there are two different
ways in which epistemological emergence (non-process sense)
could emerge (in the process sense). My example was intended
to illustrate the less obvious of the two ways. However, the
point that I am making is not a particularly important one,
and I am happpy to drop the issue.

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Tim Tyler at
[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Natural selection may get the final say - but the
generation of variation /often/ involves alternatives
that can be easily produced.

It may be quite reasonable to say that a branching tree
was one of the early variations formed - because there
was a short sequence of developmental instructions that
led to it and the sequence could easily be reached by
mutation.

The idea that simple instruction sequences produce apparently-
complex, patterened and purposeful-looking results is
well known to those interested in fractals and cellular
automata.

I agree with all of this, and I fail to see how it is in
conflict even with "panadaptationism."

The characature of a panadaptationist will tend to look
at the order created by a self-organising system and
tend to invent adaptive explanations for the existence
of that order.

E.g. rather than answering the question of why legs of a
centipede are all the same by invoking the fact that
they are all generated by the same small simple
program, the panadaptationist will tend to suggest that
centipede legs are all the same so that each leg fits
in exactly with the stride of the leg in front of it -
and no toes get stepped on.

Explanations in terms of small developmental programs don't
occur to our characatured panadaptationist - because he
thinks that natural selection is the answer to all
biological problems involving structure and form.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Hi Bill,

Note that I have snipped one sentence out of a longer post.

in article [email hidden], William Morse
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/1/04 7:32 PM:

Quoted message said:

Why should the fact that evolution is constrained by
physics imply that we should invoke physics as a "primary
explanation"?

Good question. Physical constraints alone do not build an
engine of work like life. They are not enough, which is why
many folks, including myself, are now calling for a re-
evaluation of the thermodynamic laws (either a modification
of the second law, or the addition of a fourth law). We are
striving to put the "dynamics" into the laws of
thermodynamics. The traditional understanding of the second
law as a "ONE WAY" traffic sign is only a constraint. It
does not make anything go that way.

Setting aside the potential for an improved understanding of
physical dynamics, your question seems to imply that biology
is somehow more than just its physical underpinnings. I am
curious as to just what it is that you think it is about
biology that is not physical. Is there biological
metaphysics? If so, isn't the science of biology doomed due
to the absence of rules that we can know of governing
metaphysics?

Cheers,

Guy

in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay at
[email hidden] wrote on 5/2/04 2:04 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[regarding "emergence" and "emergent properties"]
Examples that I would use of quality emergence, the
category in which I would put your example, include the
observation that pressure cannot be defined for a single
particle. It is a quality that can only be defined for a
population of particles. In my view, the term "emergence"
should not be used to describe this observation. It is a
consequence of the way we conceptualize "pressure",
rather than something that happens in a natural system.
This confusion comes about in part from the fact that new
qualities also emerge coincidentally with new
structures/processes.

Your suggestion that "emergence" should not be used in an
epistemological sense, but only in a physical sense, is
understandable. After all, the nontechnical uses of the
word convey the notion of a physical process occuring in
time. However, you should be aware that the
epistemological technical use of the word has a long
history: plato.stanford.edupropertiesOpen ↗
emergent/ But more relevant to the present discussion is
the use of the word as a slogan by "General Systems
Theory". This was an interesting intellectual movement,
better known in the past generation, from which the modern
"complexity" movement has inherited terminology, aura, and
stigma. The main gurus were von Bertalanfy, Boulding, and
Koestler. These authors based much of their anti-
reductionist stance on the observation that, as a system
is synthesized in a "bottom-up" direction, new properties
"emerge" at the higher levels. The whole is more than the
sum of its parts. A "holistic" viewpoint is needed. Or,
saying the same thing, as a system is analyzed in a "top-
down" direction, something is lost. Hence, reductionism is
suspect, according to GST.

It seems we agree. In fact, I have toyed with the idea of
writing a book on complexity and some of the chapters I have
outlined deal specifically with emergent properties
(qualities), emergent structures, and emergent functions,
respectively. I don't know whether I will ever take a
serious shot at finishing this book, but a central
conclusion I would reach regards the fundamental importance
of emergent entities (coherent agents of action and effect).
My goal would be in part to disentangle the physical aspects
of emergence from our mere perceptions of emergence (e.g.,
surprise at the possibility of new qualities as population
size changes).

[snip]

Regards,

Guy

Tim Tyler <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Tim Tyler at
[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Natural selection may get the final say - but the
generation of variation /often/ involves alternatives
that can be easily produced.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It may be quite reasonable to say that a branching tree
was one of the early variations formed - because there
was a short sequence of developmental instructions that
led to it and the sequence could easily be reached by
mutation.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The idea that simple instruction sequences produce apparently-
complex, patterened and purposeful-looking results is
well known to those interested in fractals and cellular
automata.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I agree with all of this, and I fail to see how it is in
conflict even with "panadaptationism."

Quoted message said:

The characature of a panadaptationist will tend to look
at the order created by a self-organising system and
tend to invent adaptive explanations for the existence
of that order.

Quoted message said:

E.g. rather than answering the question of why legs of a
centipede are all the same by invoking the fact that
they are all generated by the same small simple
program, the panadaptationist will tend to suggest
that centipede legs are all the same so that each leg
fits in exactly with the stride of the leg in front
of it - and no toes get stepped on.

Quoted message said:

Explanations in terms of small developmental programs
don't occur to our characatured panadaptationist - because
he thinks that natural selection is the answer to all
biological problems involving structure and form.

But - to play devil's advocate, because I tend to agree
with you - what if our caricatured (to keep Josh happy
note the spelling) panadaptationist were to say that the
developmental genes that led to segmentation got
selected over other alternatives during the Cambrian
explosion precisely because they made it easier for
coordinated motion?

Yours,

Bill Morse

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Jim Menegay
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/2/04 2:04 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[regarding "emergence" and "emergent properties"]
Examples that I would use of quality emergence, the
category in which I would put your example, include the
observation that pressure cannot be defined for a
single particle. It is a quality that can only be
defined for a population of particles. In my view, the
term "emergence" should not be used to describe this
observation. It is a consequence of the way we
conceptualize "pressure", rather than something that
happens in a natural system. This confusion comes about
in part from the fact that new qualities also emerge
coincidentally with new structures/processes.

Your suggestion that "emergence" should not be used in
an epistemological sense, but only in a physical
sense, is understandable. After all, the nontechnical
uses of the word convey the notion of a physical
process occuring in time. However, you should be aware
that the epistemological technical use of the word has
a long history: plato.stanford.edupropertiesOpen ↗
emergent/ But more relevant to the present discussion
is the use of the word as a slogan by "General Systems
Theory". This was an interesting intellectual
movement, better known in the past generation, from
which the modern "complexity" movement has inherited
terminology, aura, and stigma. The main gurus were von
Bertalanfy, Boulding, and Koestler. These authors
based much of their anti-reductionist stance on the
observation that, as a system is synthesized in a "bottom-
up" direction, new properties "emerge" at the higher
levels. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. A
"holistic" viewpoint is needed. Or, saying the same
thing, as a system is analyzed in a "top-down"
direction, something is lost. Hence, reductionism is
suspect, according to GST.

It seems we agree. In fact, I have toyed with the idea of
writing a book on complexity and some of the chapters I
have outlined deal specifically with emergent properties
(qualities), emergent structures, and emergent functions,
respectively. I don't know whether I will ever take a
serious shot at finishing this book, but a central
conclusion I would reach regards the fundamental
importance of emergent entities (coherent agents of action
and effect). My goal would be in part to disentangle the
physical aspects of emergence from our mere perceptions of
emergence (e.g., surprise at the possibility of new
qualities as population size changes).

[snip]

Regards,

Guy

I strongly recommend this book:

Blitz, David. 1992. Emergent evolution: qualitative novelty
and the levels of reality. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.

and the *term* is, I believe, due to this one:

Morgan, Conwy Lloyd. 1923. Emergent evolution : the Gifford
lectures delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the
year 1922, Gifford Lectures. St. Andrews University ; 1922.
London: Williams And Norgate.

although the *idea* goes back to Mill.
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Note that I have snipped one sentence out of a
longer post.

in article [email hidden], William
Morse at [email hidden] wrote on 5/1/04 7:32 PM:

Quoted message said:

Why should the fact that evolution is constrained by
physics imply that we should invoke physics as a "primary
explanation"?

Quoted message said:

Good question. Physical constraints alone do not build an
engine of work like life. They are not enough, which is
why many folks, including myself, are now calling for a
re-evaluation of the thermodynamic laws (either a
modification of the second law, or the addition of a
fourth law). We are striving to put the "dynamics" into
the laws of thermodynamics. The traditional understanding
of the second law as a "ONE WAY" traffic sign is only a
constraint. It does not make anything go that way.

Setting aside the potential for an improved understanding
of physical dynamics, your question seems to imply that
biology is somehow more than just its physical
underpinnings. I am curious as to just what it is that you
think it is about biology that is not physical. Is there
biological metaphysics? If so, isn't the science of
biology doomed due to the absence of rules that we can
know of governing metaphysics?

Dang! Now I have to try to remember what I was thinking when
I made that statment :-)

But before I do that: isn't the science of physics doomed
due to the absence of rules that we can know of governing
metaphysics? Assuming a reductionist stance for now - that
biology is explained by chemistry, and chemistry is
explained by physics - then I have to ask the question: what
explains physics? Is there physical metaphysics? There
appear to be three possible answers - probably Dr. John
(Wilkins) can come up with more:

(1) the cosmological argument is correct, and there is a
prime mover somewhere who decreed what the speed of
light would be, and what Planck's constant would be,
etc., etc.;

(2) there is an infinite chain of regression, and we will
always find a further reductionist reason for the reason
(protons are explained by quarks, quarks are explained
by string theory, string theory is explained by
something we haven't come up with yet, etc. ad
infinitum) I call this the turtle theory, after the joke
about the world being held up by sitting on the back of
a turtle - "but what holds up the turtle?" - "another
turtle" - "but what holds up that turtle?"- "another
turtle" - but what holds"- "give it up, kid, it's
turtles all the way down"

(3) the ontological argument is correct, and existence
implies essence. I actually like this argument, at least
compared to the alternatives, although I disagree with
St. Anselm that it proves the existence of a Supreme
Being. It seems possible to me that if you have
existence, then you must have non-existence, so you have
a 0 and a 1. Given a 0 and a 1 you can construct binary
mathematics, and from that you can construct mathematics
in general. Now I have no idea how you get from that to
Planck's constant, but that's just a minor detail :-)

Having got that off my chest, my statement was really based
on my interpreting "primary explanation" as more akin to
final cause than formal cause.The mackerel has a deeply
forked tail because fluid dynamics dictates that as the best
shape for high speed swimming in water if maneuverability is
less important, but the reason that a mackerel needs to swim
fast with limited maneuverability is related to selection
for its niche.

I do believe that in some cases it is appropriate to invoke
physics or chemistry as a primary explanation. For instance,
I would argue that most animals are bilaterally symmetrical
because of chemical constraints on development, not because
of selective bias for that form. I was mostly arguing
against taking this to the extreme position of using physics
as the final cause for all of biology. While this may be
true, it is probably unprovable and in any case is often of
no help in our understanding.

Yours,

Bill Morse

in article [email hidden], William Morse at
[email hidden] wrote on 5/6/04 4:44 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Note that I have snipped one sentence out of a
longer post.

in article [email hidden], William
Morse at [email hidden] wrote on 5/1/04 7:32 PM:

Quoted message said:

Why should the fact that evolution is constrained by
physics imply that we should invoke physics as a
"primary explanation"?

Quoted message said:

Good question. Physical constraints alone do not build an
engine of work like life. They are not enough, which is
why many folks, including myself, are now calling for a
re-evaluation of the thermodynamic laws (either a
modification of the second law, or the addition of a
fourth law). We are striving to put the "dynamics" into
the laws of thermodynamics. The traditional understanding
of the second law as a "ONE WAY" traffic sign is only a
constraint. It does not make anything go that way.

Setting aside the potential for an improved understanding
of physical dynamics, your question seems to imply that
biology is somehow more than just its physical
underpinnings. I am curious as to just what it is that
you think it is about biology that is not physical. Is
there biological metaphysics? If so, isn't the science of
biology doomed due to the absence of rules that we can
know of governing metaphysics?

Dang! Now I have to try to remember what I was thinking
when I made that statment :-)

But before I do that: isn't the science of physics doomed
due to the absence of rules that we can know of governing
metaphysics?

It would indeed lose its credibility if metaphysics exists
IMHO; but them my position is that there is no such thing as
metaphysics.

Quoted message said:

Assuming a reductionist stance for now - that biology
is explained by chemistry, and chemistry is explained
by physics

I see this as a distortion of the reductionist viewpoint,
albeit a common one. I see them as hierarchically related,
rather than linearly stacked. You could, for example, drill
down from physics (the most inclusive category) to biology
(a subset of physics).

Quoted message said:

- then I have to ask the question: what explains physics?

Physics theory.

Quoted message said:

Is there physical metaphysics?

Not in my view.

Quoted message said:

There appear to be three possible answers - probably Dr.
John (Wilkins) can come up with more:

(1) the cosmological argument is correct, and there is a
prime mover somewhere who decreed what the speed of
light would be, and what Planck's constant would be,
etc., etc.;

I am not sure what you are saying here. AFAIK
cosmological theory does not posit a role for a prime
mover decreeing anything.

Quoted message said:

(2) there is an infinite chain of regression, and we will
always find a further reductionist reason for the
reason (protons are explained by quarks, quarks are
explained by string theory, string theory is explained
by something we haven't come up with yet, etc. ad
infinitum) I call this the turtle theory, after the
joke about the world being held up by sitting on the
back of a turtle - "but what holds up the turtle?" -
"another turtle" - "but what holds up that turtle?"-
"another turtle" - but what holds"- "give it up, kid,
it's turtles all the way down"

I love this turtle picture myself, but I sure hope it is
incorrect.

Quoted message said:

(3) the ontological argument is correct, and existence
implies essence. I actually like this argument, at
least compared to the alternatives, although I
disagree with St. Anselm that it proves the existence
of a Supreme Being. It seems possible to me that if
you have existence, then you must have non-existence,
so you have a 0 and a 1. Given a 0 and a 1 you can
construct binary mathematics, and from that you can
construct mathematics in general. Now I have no idea
how you get from that to Planck's constant, but that's
just a minor detail :-)

I like your thinking here. As we have been discussing in
this thread, I see emergence as a path to quantum existence,
so I am also optimistic about a theory that allows existence
to imply essence without implying the parallel existence of
a supreme being.

Quoted message said:

Having got that off my chest, my statement was really
based on my interpreting "primary explanation" as more
akin to final cause than formal cause.The mackerel has a
deeply forked tail because fluid dynamics dictates that as
the best shape for high speed swimming in water if
maneuverability is less important, but the reason that a
mackerel needs to swim fast with limited maneuverability
is related to selection for its niche.

I agree. I also see all of this as part of physics, although
not in reductionistic sense that you described above. I am
talking about the physics of macroscopic phenomena.

Quoted message said:

I do believe that in some cases it is appropriate to
invoke physics or chemistry as a primary explanation. For
instance, I would argue that most animals are bilaterally
symmetrical because of chemical constraints on
development, not because of selective bias for that form.
I was mostly arguing against taking this to the extreme
position of using physics as the final cause for all of
biology. While this may be true, it is probably unprovable
and in any case is often of no help in our understanding.

I suspect that you would come to a different conclusion if
you recognized the relevance of physics to macroscopic
phenomena through thermodynamics, which is exclusively about
the behavior of macroscopic systems. In other words, it is
intended to be about things like organisms and life in
general. Why should we biologists ignore the aspect of
physical theory that is about biology, not to mention all
other macroscopic systems?

Guy

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote:

...

Quoted message said:

But before I do that: isn't the science of physics doomed
due to the absence of rules that we can know of governing
metaphysics? Assuming a reductionist stance for now - that
biology is explained by chemistry, and chemistry is
explained by physics - then I have to ask the question:
what explains physics? Is there physical metaphysics?
There appear to be three possible answers - probably Dr.
John (Wilkins) can come up with more:

I shan't, but you raise a very cute problem: if explanation
is something along the lines of the n-d (nomological-
deductive) model, where you have satisfactorily explained a
phenomenon or explanadum E only so far as you have deduced E
from a generalisation or law L and a set of boundary and
initial conditions C [they teach us to talk like this, you
know], how can metaphysics explain physics?

For there are no laws or generalisations in metaphysics from
which we can deduce or even infer the laws of physics or the
very existence of a physical world.

I shall have to think this one through, and publish a
paper on it :-)
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

Guy Hoelzer said:

Dear Wirt,

I am responding to a wonderful post of yours. You and I
are in extremely close agreement on these issues, in
general, but I want to "pick one nit" out of your post.
You and I have discovered our disagreement on this
particular issue before, but I thought it might be useful
to lay it out for discussion in sbe.

in article [email hidden], Wirt Atmar
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:

Quoted message said:

Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.

I often see the term "vitalism" used in this way (the way
I think you are using it), as a rhetorical punishment for
perceived false logic, or warning to avoid this direction
in our modeling of nature. I don't understand this
position. I see vitalism as something to be explained by
science, rather than avoided as if it must represent a
falsehood. I suspect that the term "vitalism" connotes
different things for us. To me it connotes an actively
driven system that behaves in ways that maximize its
functional effectiveness and persistence. Life certainly
does this, as well as any dissipative system (sensu
Prigogine).

Vital fluids, interior molds, elan vital, entelechies and
the like postulate an occult force as an explanation. When
the mechanisms of reproduction, growth and metabolism were
unknown, it might have been worthwhile to postulate them,
but now it is merely mysticism. "Vitalism" is the theory
that there is something qualitatively different *at every
level* between life and nonlife - the vital force must
explain why cells divide, why organisms grow, why they react
to stimuli. But we know why they do these things, and there
is no non-physical remainder left over to explain. I think
you are anachronistically interpreting "vitalism" the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim that
a property occurs at a physical level or scale which cannot
be reduced to the properties of the components. Hence, for
example, consciousness is the paradigmatic case of an
emergent property, because it is supposed to have features
that cannot be explained as the vector sum of all the
dynamics of neurons and their environmental inputs. But each
new discovery shows this to be false. Likewise with
evolution. Each emergent property turns out to be either a
cause for a research program to decompose it into its
substrate, or can already be explained that way. People who
rest satisfied with emergent properties do, indeed, tread
close to mysticism and vitalism.

Quoted message said:

I also take issue with your assertion that when "emergent
properties are introduced into a philosophy of
evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness is
simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost always
parts of our models, especially in the study of such high-
order phenomena as evolutionary biology. That is what
assumptions are all about. Even our assumptions are
usually about very high-order phenomena, which themselves
would require hefty assumption sets to explain. I do not
see the introduction of emergent properties [note that
this is VERY different from the notion of emergent
systems] as introducing either mystery or vitalism into
theory. Pressure, for example, is an emergent property of
a collection of atoms, which is not definable for a single
atom in isolation. Would you say that introducing the
concept of pressure into physical theory invoked
additional mystery and "treads close to vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for - there
is no emergence here. The classical example, introduced by
Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the liquid properties
of water, which he said could not be deduced from the
properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But we do exactly that
these days - you can model wuite accurately the dynamics and
microproperties of water on a computer using only the known
properties of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It only took a
computer that was more powerful than Mill had to hand.

Quoted message said:

Cheers,

Guy

--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857