Complexity



"Tim Tyler" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> > Jim Menegay at [email protected] wrote on 4/28/04
2:44 PM:
> > > Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > Cosma Shalizi offers some criticism of the whole idea -
and winds up
> offering a purely mem
> > > 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?
>
> "Edge of chaos" *is* an evocative phrase.
>
> However... subsequent researchers generally failed to
confirm Langton's
> suggestion that the location might be of interest in terms
of being a
> particulary attractive spot for performing computations -
and his Lambda
> parameter hasn't actually proved to be of much use :-(
>
etic explanation for the existence of the phrase:
>
> ``Given that that the opinion of specialists was never
unanimous behind
> ?life at the edge of chaos,? and there is every
possibility it?s wrong,
> why was this idea picked up by some segments of educated
opinion and
> adopted? ? even adopted pretty widely; I seem to recall
Al Gore making
> some hay with the notion, and hearing that it was being
touted by
> management witch-doctors. The obvious answer is that it
fits nicely with
> some wide-spread prejudices: basically, antinomianism, a
dislike of
> rules and rigidity and formality, a positive relish for
rule-breaking.''
>
> -
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/edge-of-
chaos.html
>
> However... I have to number myself as among those who
thinks that
> there really /is/ something to Langton's intuitive idea
;-)
>
> "Self-organised criticality" (e.g. the
pile-of-sand/landslide effect)
> is the simplest way I know to clearly illustrate to
sceptics that
> there really /is/ something to the notion that complex
systems can
> tend to migrate towards the "edge" of zones where chaotic
behaviour
> 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

> --
> __________
> |im |yler http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
lock to reply.
 
Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:<[email protected]>...
> > > 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 protected], Jim Menegay at
[email protected] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

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

> 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 protected], Jim Menegay at
[email protected] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>> in article [email protected], Jim Menegay
>> at [email protected] wrote on 4/28/04 2:44 PM:
>>
>>> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>> news:<[email protected]>...
>>>> 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.
> http://www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech/tutorials/Comp-
> 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.

>>> 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.
>> 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.
>
>>> 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.
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>> 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):
> http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/emergence/

>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.

>>> 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]
>>> 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]
>>> 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.

> 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:
>>
>>> 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."

>> 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.

>>> 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.

> 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>.

> 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.

> The second quotes Robert May about SFI: http://www.sant-
> 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 protected]> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...

> > 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...

> 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 ;-)
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
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Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
> > Jim Menegay <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> > > Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > > news:<[email protected]>...

> > > > 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 ;-)

> 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.

> 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).
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
lock to reply.
 
Tim,

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

> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
>> in article [email protected], Tim Tyler
>> at [email protected]
>>> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
>>>> Tim Tyler at [email protected] wrote on 4/27/04 2:32 PM:
>
>>>>> 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.

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

Yes.

> 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.

> 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."

> 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.

> 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 protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> 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.

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

(snip)

> 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"?

> 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 protected]> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in
> > Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> >> Tim Tyler at [email protected]

> >> > 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.
>
> 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:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_functional-
shift.html
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
lock to reply.
 
William Morse <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler <[email protected]> wrote in

> > 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.

> > 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 http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
lock to reply.
 
Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> in article [email protected], Jim Menegay
> at [email protected] wrote on 4/30/04 8:14 AM:

Responding to just a few scattered points:

> > Here is a resource regarding some of the meanings of
> > "complexity" as used within the scientific community.
> > http://www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech/tutorials/Comp-
> > 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: http://www.santafe.edu/projects/CompMech/tutorials/
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.

> [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: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-
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.

> > 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 protected]> wrote or quoted:
> in article [email protected], Tim Tyler at
> [email protected]

> > 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 http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove
lock to reply.
 
Hi Bill,

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

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

> 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 protected], Jim Menegay at
[email protected] wrote on 5/2/04 2:04 PM:

> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
[snip]
>> [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: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-
> 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 protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote or quoted:
>> in article [email protected], Tim Tyler at
>> [email protected]

>> > 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.

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 <[email protected]> wrote:

> in article [email protected], Jim Menegay
> at [email protected] wrote on 5/2/04 2:04 PM:
>
> > Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:<[email protected]>...
> [snip]
> >> [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: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-
> > 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 protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Note that I have snipped one sentence out of a
> longer post.
>
> in article [email protected], William
> Morse at [email protected] wrote on 5/1/04 7:32 PM:
>
>> 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?

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

> Guy Hoelzer <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>
>> Note that I have snipped one sentence out of a
>> longer post.
>>
>> in article [email protected], William
>> Morse at [email protected] wrote on 5/1/04 7:32 PM:
>>
>>> 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?
>
> 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.

> 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).

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

Physics theory.

> Is there physical metaphysics?

Not in my view.

> 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.

> (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.

> (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.

> 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.

> 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 protected]> wrote:

...
> 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 <[email protected]> wrote:

> 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 protected], Wirt Atmar
> at [email protected] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:
>
> > 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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
 
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