“Emergence” is a particularly strong example of a word that label a range of concepts of varying levels of plausibility. Which needs to be pointed out, since there are many denunciations of emergence as though it is a single concept that is one hundred percent wrong (often featuring the word “magic”)
Some of the meanings:-
Weak (synchronic) emergence is just the claim that systems have properties that their parts don’t have. That’s obviously true in many cases: a watch can tell the time, a single cog in the machine cannot. It’s also compatible with determinism
Strong (synchronic) emergence is a claim along the lines that some higher properties of a system cannot be understood in terms of its parts and interactions—the negation of the typical reductionist claim that it can be so understood.
Reductionism isn’t necessarily true, so strong emergence isn’t necessarily false.
Diachronic Emergence is usually defined as the appearance of “genuine novelty” over time. How magical this is is, is going to depend on how “genuine novelty” is defined. Often, it isnt … it’s just left to subjective judgement. A claim that life, consciousness, or whatever was previously impossible would be a kind of magic , but such a claim is not usually made.
Weak Diachronic Emergence,by contrast would be the claim that the novel properties were latent in the laws of physics , before conditions became right for them to be actualized. .. so that a Laplace’s demon would have been able to predict them. It’s quite compatible with determinism, since determinism doesn’t require what is possible, in the sense of not forbidden to happen all at once...conditions have to be right.
Anyway , Yudkowsky’s ire is mostly directed at strong synchronous emergentism, whereas you are mostly discussing diachronous emergentism.
“Emergence” is a particularly strong example of a word that label a range of concepts of varying levels of plausibility. Which needs to be pointed out, since there are many denunciations of emergence as though it is a single concept that is one hundred percent wrong (often featuring the word “magic”)
Some of the meanings:-
Weak (synchronic) emergence is just the claim that systems have properties that their parts don’t have. That’s obviously true in many cases: a watch can tell the time, a single cog in the machine cannot. It’s also compatible with determinism
Strong (synchronic) emergence is a claim along the lines that some higher properties of a system cannot be understood in terms of its parts and interactions—the negation of the typical reductionist claim that it can be so understood.
Reductionism isn’t necessarily true, so strong emergence isn’t necessarily false.
Diachronic Emergence is usually defined as the appearance of “genuine novelty” over time. How magical this is is, is going to depend on how “genuine novelty” is defined. Often, it isnt … it’s just left to subjective judgement. A claim that life, consciousness, or whatever was previously impossible would be a kind of magic , but such a claim is not usually made.
Weak Diachronic Emergence,by contrast would be the claim that the novel properties were latent in the laws of physics , before conditions became right for them to be actualized. .. so that a Laplace’s demon would have been able to predict them. It’s quite compatible with determinism, since determinism doesn’t require what is possible, in the sense of not forbidden to happen all at once...conditions have to be right.
Anyway , Yudkowsky’s ire is mostly directed at strong synchronous emergentism, whereas you are mostly discussing diachronous emergentism.