Could you explain what exactly you mean by “complex” here?
So, here I’m just stating the requirement that the system adds complexity, and that it is not merely categorically different. So, heat, for instance could be seen is categorically different to the process that it “emerged” from, but it would not qualify as “emergent” it is clearly entropic, reducing complexity. Whereas an immune system is built on top of an organism’s complexity, it is a more complex system because it includes all the complexity of the system it emerged from + its own complexity (or to use your code example, all the base code plus the new branch).
The second part is more important to my particular way of understanding emergence.
What does “aligned” mean in this context?
I think I could potentially make this clearer as it seems “alignment” comes with a lot of baggage, and has potentially been worn out in general (vague) usage, making its correct usage seem obscure and difficult to place. By “aligned with” I mean not merely related to but, “following the same pattern as”, that pattern might be a function it plays or a physical or conceptual shape that is similar. So, the slime mold and the Tokyo rail system share a similar shape, they have converged on a similar outcome because they are aligned with a similar pattern (efficiency of transport given a particular map).
Cells that a toe consists of are different than cells that a testicle or an eye consist of.
I think we’re in agreement here, my point is that the eye or testicle perform a (macroscopic) function, the cells they are made of are less important than the function—of the 20+ different varieties of eyes, none of them are made of the same cells, but it still makes sense to call them eyes, because they align with the function, eyes are essentially cell-agnostic, as long as they converge on a function.
Again, thanks for the response, I’ll try to think of some edits that help make these aspects clearer in the text.
I’m afraid you didn’t make it clearer what you mean by “complexity” with your explanation. Could you taboo the word?
Are you using “comlex” and “emergent” simply as synonims to “having low entropy”? Or is there some more nuanced relations between them?
By “aligned with” I mean not merely related to but, “following the same pattern as”
Okay then putting it into the sentence in question we get:
a system more closely follows the patternof a macroscopic phenomenon than its components.
I’m afraid this is also not particularly comprehensible. What you seem to be saying is that macroscopic phenomenon that the system produces is more important than which components the system has. But this sounds as a map-territory confusion. Indeed we can talk about a system with a high level map and get some utility from it for our purposes. But that’s not a sole property of the system but also of our minds and values. And in the end all the properties of the system are reducible to the properties of it’s individual parts.
Sorry about my lack of clarity: By “complex” I mean “intricately ordered” rather than the simple disorder generally expected of an entropic process. To taboo both this and alignment as “following the same pattern as”:
I’d like to make the case that emergent complexity is where…
a whole system is more intricately orderedthan the sum of its parts
a system follows more closely the pattern of a macroscopic phenomenon than it follows the pattern of any of its component parts.
By a macroscopic phenomenon, I mean any (or all) of the following:
1. Another physical feature of the world which it fits to, like roads aligning with a map and its terrain (and obstacles).
2. Another instance of what appears to fulfil a similar purpose despite entirely different paths to get there or materials (like with convergence)
3. A conceptual feature of the world, like a purpose or function.
So, we can more readily understand an emergent phenomenon in relation to some other macroscopic phenomenon than we can were we to merely inspect the cells in isolation. In other words, there is usefulness identifying the 20+ varieties of eyes as “eyes” (2) even though they are not the same at all, on a cellular level. It is also meaningful to understand that they perform a function or purpose (3), and that they fit the physical world (by reflecting it relatively accurately) (1).
Thanks for your well considered comment.
So, here I’m just stating the requirement that the system adds complexity, and that it is not merely categorically different. So, heat, for instance could be seen is categorically different to the process that it “emerged” from, but it would not qualify as “emergent” it is clearly entropic, reducing complexity. Whereas an immune system is built on top of an organism’s complexity, it is a more complex system because it includes all the complexity of the system it emerged from + its own complexity (or to use your code example, all the base code plus the new branch).
The second part is more important to my particular way of understanding emergence.
I think I could potentially make this clearer as it seems “alignment” comes with a lot of baggage, and has potentially been worn out in general (vague) usage, making its correct usage seem obscure and difficult to place. By “aligned with” I mean not merely related to but, “following the same pattern as”, that pattern might be a function it plays or a physical or conceptual shape that is similar. So, the slime mold and the Tokyo rail system share a similar shape, they have converged on a similar outcome because they are aligned with a similar pattern (efficiency of transport given a particular map).
I think we’re in agreement here, my point is that the eye or testicle perform a (macroscopic) function, the cells they are made of are less important than the function—of the 20+ different varieties of eyes, none of them are made of the same cells, but it still makes sense to call them eyes, because they align with the function, eyes are essentially cell-agnostic, as long as they converge on a function.
Again, thanks for the response, I’ll try to think of some edits that help make these aspects clearer in the text.
I’m afraid you didn’t make it clearer what you mean by “complexity” with your explanation. Could you taboo the word?
Are you using “comlex” and “emergent” simply as synonims to “having low entropy”? Or is there some more nuanced relations between them?
Okay then putting it into the sentence in question we get:
a system more closely follows the pattern of a macroscopic phenomenon than its components.
I’m afraid this is also not particularly comprehensible. What you seem to be saying is that macroscopic phenomenon that the system produces is more important than which components the system has. But this sounds as a map-territory confusion. Indeed we can talk about a system with a high level map and get some utility from it for our purposes. But that’s not a sole property of the system but also of our minds and values. And in the end all the properties of the system are reducible to the properties of it’s individual parts.
Sorry about my lack of clarity: By “complex” I mean “intricately ordered” rather than the simple disorder generally expected of an entropic process. To taboo both this and alignment as “following the same pattern as”:
By a macroscopic phenomenon, I mean any (or all) of the following:
1. Another physical feature of the world which it fits to, like roads aligning with a map and its terrain (and obstacles).
2. Another instance of what appears to fulfil a similar purpose despite entirely different paths to get there or materials (like with convergence)
3. A conceptual feature of the world, like a purpose or function.
So, we can more readily understand an emergent phenomenon in relation to some other macroscopic phenomenon than we can were we to merely inspect the cells in isolation. In other words, there is usefulness identifying the 20+ varieties of eyes as “eyes” (2) even though they are not the same at all, on a cellular level. It is also meaningful to understand that they perform a function or purpose (3), and that they fit the physical world (by reflecting it relatively accurately) (1).