“Emergent” is just an adjective describing an attribute. Other examples are complex, simple, generic, unique, random, predictable, valuable, politically inconvenient, unexpected, widely-known, and a few others. For example, saying “The behavior of the ant colony is the widely-known outcome of the interactions of many individual ants.”, won’t tell you much new about the ant colony itself, nor will it let you model it. It will tell you that ant colonies aren’t successfully secretive, nor too complex for humans to understand, which technically is details about the ant colony’s behavior.
Likewise, knowing that ant colony behavior is “emergent”, won’t let you model the ant colony. It will tell you that ants interacting in simple ways can lead to seemingly complex and perhaps unexpected behavior. But it won’t tell you what rules govern the interaction of individual ants, nor of the whole colony. It does tell you that if you replaced half the ants with other compatible ants, rearranged the ants, or similar disturbances, there’d be little difference in overall behavior of the colony. You see, it is a description of the model of ant colony behavior, and not a model of ant colony behavior. It’s use as an explanation or curiosity-stopper is inappropriate, but not any more so than any of the adjectives in the above paragraph.
It would be inappropriate to describe ant colony behavior as being and “emergent” property of atoms. You can’t rearrange the atoms, the atoms will not continue to act like a ant colony. Conversely, rearranging and replacing cars and stock market participants, will do little to change the traffic patterns and stock market (minus a period of adjustment). As for human intelligence as an emergent property of neurons, it is a statement of fact but I do not know if it is accurate. The hierarchical structure and specialized regions, would seem to suggest more nuances than emergent behaviors are supposed to have. Neural rearrangement and replacement, on a scale of half the neurons at once, can’t be done for practical nor ethical reasons, and would be expected to delete years of experience, and that without the development phase—but it might still result in intelligence, especially if done on a fetus. I could easily see people hoping that intelligence is emergent from neurons, as it would make for a simpler model and thus cause an earlier advance in AI and intelligence related fields. I wouldn’t fancy trying to figure out neuron-based intelligence if it is not an emergent behavior.
I have always been intrigued that such a complex system like a living cell, could be reduced underlying physics and chemistry. Over time, my reductionistic curiosity was eroded by holistic views that embrace emergence phenomenon as an explanation of complexity. However, eventually, I was disillusioned with the emergence paradigm, as misleading and concluded that the popular interpretation of holism ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts,’ is profoundly deceptive if used within scientific explanation.
My current view is that emergence is a perception caused by part’s properties not observable in isolated parts. These properties become observable only during interactions in the system; a system acts as ‘litmus test’ or a ‘magnifying glass’ that just reveals the parts’ properties not observable otherwise.
Regarding ant colony how much we know about individual ants to deprive them from ability of complex behavior?
In my book the complexity of any system resulted from collective complexity of its elements.
The typical rhetorical argument in favor of emergence is the question: ‘Is water more than one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen?’ The intuitive respond, is yes, because in our perception, water, the way we directly experience it, is very different from an abstract theoretical model of atoms of oxygen and hydrogen. However, from a scientific point of view this question is misleading. The correct question would be: ‘Is a molecule of water more than one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen, interacting among each other?’ This time the answer is no: the molecule of water is no more that the sum of its components.
I would be interested in any example in which complexity of the system “emerges” from elements we know (or at least we believe we know) everything about.
In this case it is obvious. However, in general a system could be less complex than complexity of its elements. We don’t have agreeable way to measure complexity but for now I would argue that complexity of molecule of water (its complete physical and chemical description) is more complex than sum of those molecules in form of a drop of water.
Unfortunately so far there’s neither accepted approach to measure nor define complexity.
“Emergent” is just an adjective describing an attribute. Other examples are complex, simple, generic, unique, random, predictable, valuable, politically inconvenient, unexpected, widely-known, and a few others. For example, saying “The behavior of the ant colony is the widely-known outcome of the interactions of many individual ants.”, won’t tell you much new about the ant colony itself, nor will it let you model it. It will tell you that ant colonies aren’t successfully secretive, nor too complex for humans to understand, which technically is details about the ant colony’s behavior.
Likewise, knowing that ant colony behavior is “emergent”, won’t let you model the ant colony. It will tell you that ants interacting in simple ways can lead to seemingly complex and perhaps unexpected behavior. But it won’t tell you what rules govern the interaction of individual ants, nor of the whole colony. It does tell you that if you replaced half the ants with other compatible ants, rearranged the ants, or similar disturbances, there’d be little difference in overall behavior of the colony. You see, it is a description of the model of ant colony behavior, and not a model of ant colony behavior. It’s use as an explanation or curiosity-stopper is inappropriate, but not any more so than any of the adjectives in the above paragraph.
It would be inappropriate to describe ant colony behavior as being and “emergent” property of atoms. You can’t rearrange the atoms, the atoms will not continue to act like a ant colony. Conversely, rearranging and replacing cars and stock market participants, will do little to change the traffic patterns and stock market (minus a period of adjustment). As for human intelligence as an emergent property of neurons, it is a statement of fact but I do not know if it is accurate. The hierarchical structure and specialized regions, would seem to suggest more nuances than emergent behaviors are supposed to have. Neural rearrangement and replacement, on a scale of half the neurons at once, can’t be done for practical nor ethical reasons, and would be expected to delete years of experience, and that without the development phase—but it might still result in intelligence, especially if done on a fetus. I could easily see people hoping that intelligence is emergent from neurons, as it would make for a simpler model and thus cause an earlier advance in AI and intelligence related fields. I wouldn’t fancy trying to figure out neuron-based intelligence if it is not an emergent behavior.
I have always been intrigued that such a complex system like a living cell, could be reduced underlying physics and chemistry. Over time, my reductionistic curiosity was eroded by holistic views that embrace emergence phenomenon as an explanation of complexity. However, eventually, I was disillusioned with the emergence paradigm, as misleading and concluded that the popular interpretation of holism ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts,’ is profoundly deceptive if used within scientific explanation. My current view is that emergence is a perception caused by part’s properties not observable in isolated parts. These properties become observable only during interactions in the system; a system acts as ‘litmus test’ or a ‘magnifying glass’ that just reveals the parts’ properties not observable otherwise.
Regarding ant colony how much we know about individual ants to deprive them from ability of complex behavior? In my book the complexity of any system resulted from collective complexity of its elements.
The typical rhetorical argument in favor of emergence is the question: ‘Is water more than one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen?’ The intuitive respond, is yes, because in our perception, water, the way we directly experience it, is very different from an abstract theoretical model of atoms of oxygen and hydrogen. However, from a scientific point of view this question is misleading. The correct question would be: ‘Is a molecule of water more than one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen, interacting among each other?’ This time the answer is no: the molecule of water is no more that the sum of its components.
I would be interested in any example in which complexity of the system “emerges” from elements we know (or at least we believe we know) everything about.
If anything, a single ant is a far more complex system than, say, a simple simulation of an ant colony of a computer.
In this case it is obvious. However, in general a system could be less complex than complexity of its elements. We don’t have agreeable way to measure complexity but for now I would argue that complexity of molecule of water (its complete physical and chemical description) is more complex than sum of those molecules in form of a drop of water. Unfortunately so far there’s neither accepted approach to measure nor define complexity.