Essay Abstract

Everything complex emerges from vast numbers of simpler things and their interactions.

Author Bio

Physicist, Pacific Science Institute

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Dear author,

I admire your excellent style, and I agree with you up to page 3. However, I doubt that structures that are documented in the strata in the earth's surface arose from a comprehensive scientific foundation.

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    Would you go another step - that emergence is a principle of the universe. Do you accept that emergence implies the whole is greater than the sum of the agents.

    Hodge

    Antony Garrett Lisi,

    Your essay assumes the emergence of something, somehow.

    Firstly, the essay doesn't give examples of simple emergence which might help to explain more complex emergence.

    E.g. does anything "arise naturally" when elementary particles interact, or atoms interact, or molecules interact, or large molecules like DNA interact (there are approximately 204 billion atoms in a human DNA molecule [1])? Surely you need a few examples of simple emergence in order to hypothesise that something similar, but bigger, could emerge out of the 100 trillion atoms interacting in a human cell? Your example of acidity is just an example of a higher-level description of existing properties, not an example of "qualitatively new properties" arising.

    Secondly, the essay doesn't say what "qualitatively new properties" might emerge. What type of thing or quality are we looking for, or does fully developed "thought, passion, love" emerge ex nihilo?

    Thirdly, the essay doesn't say how to represent emergence. Does a third dimension emerge out of a 2 dimensional graph? Are the shapes, that are sometimes observed on a graph of a complex system, analogous to the emergence of something? From what point of view does something emerge: from the point of view of a pixel embedded in a representation of a complex system, or from the point of view of someone observing the whole representation of the complex system?

    1. https://michaelgr.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/how-many-atoms-to-encode-the-human-genome

      I especially like your beginning: "Thought."

      Reminds me of the equation "self=(thinking, self)."

      Or--

      self = (thinking, (thinking, self))

      self = (thinking, (thinking, (thinking, self)))

      And so on and so on, until one day, in some cases, it's just

      self=(self)

      At this level, "self" is maximal simplicity. But underneath is complexity we don't yet understand-- breath, the proprioceptor system that works with it, for example.

      Thanks for a great essay!

      "... to simulate something does not mean you understand the thing ..." The preceding is an important point -- but I say that if you study a thing and ignore an important genius then you should be sure that the work of that genius is not relevant to that thing. I say that Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology. I noticed that in your 2007 publication "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"

      https://arxiv.org/pdf/0711.0770v1.pdf

      there are 22 references, but none to Milgrom's MOND. Do you think that MOND is wrong? Do you think that MOND can be explained by conventional physics?

      (Antony) Garrett (Lisi),

      To further pursue the issue of the mathematical representation of emergence:

      1. Human observers are already highly evolved, and they have a high-level point of view. From the point of view of human observers, shapes can seem to emerge from graphical representations of the numerical values of complex system parameters (e.g. the Mandelbrot set), but it takes a pre-existing higher-level point of view to observe it. These shapes do not represent emergence - they only represent a set of numerical values (and they do not represent the emergence of a "set"!). Nothing new is happening from the point of view of the pixels representing the complex system: the numerical values are changing, that is all that is happening.

      2. Emergence can be represented on a graph of the numerical values of system parameters if and only if you can get an equation for a new system parameter, or alternatively a new equation for an existing system parameter, to emerge from this graph. Logically, such a thing can never occur.

      Conclusion: There can be no emergence from graphs representing complex mathematical systems. "Emergence" describes what happens when an equation for a new system parameter is introduced to the system, or a new equation for an existing system parameter is introduced to the system. These new equations are ex nihilo introductions to a mathematical system: they cannot evolve from a mathematical system.

      Similarly, in actual reality, emergence is the equivalent of ex nihilo introductions of new equations to the system.

      Dear Dr. Garrett,

      Every real thing has a real surface. This real surface did not emerge from anywhere.

      One real Universe must have only one reality. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as theories of reality are.

      Joe Fisher, Realist

      Re Emergence:

      See https://aeon.co/videos/a-transfixing-audiovisual-dive-into-varieties-of-emergence : A transfixing audiovisual dive into varieties of emergence.

      But the issue is not "how does structure emerge?". The issue is "how do rules (representable by mathematical equations) emerge?". The answer is that rules that control the system in question don't emerge: rules are ex nihilo introductions to the system.

      If you don't or can't add new rules to the system, the system is stagnant.

      Dear Ms. Ford,

      No matter how "evolved" human observers might become, they can only observe surface for only surface has ever existed.

      Simple natural reality has nothing to do with any abstract complex musings such as the ones you effortlessly indulge in. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as theories of reality are.

      Joe Fisher, Realist

      That analogy was part of the metaphorical allegory.

      Joe,

      you yourself "effortlessly indulge in" "abstract complex musings"!!!

      I read your comment about my comment on Carlo Rovelli's essay. You might be right that reality is "not as complicated as theories of reality are".

      Antony Garrett Lisi,

      Re the fact that structure emerges from a graphical representation of a system, but the rules that control the system structure don't emerge from the system - the rules are in effect ex nihilo additions to the system:

      In a complex system, anything that has control of the rules (that in turn control the parameter numeric value outcomes) has control of the system. E.g. if a pixel, in a graphical representation of a complex system, had agency and could occasionally make its own rule for one of its own parameter numeric value outcomes, then that pixel has partial control of the complex system in which it is immersed. In a graphical representation, "agency" is about control of the rules.

      Getting back to real life, as opposed to graphical representations of systems, "the character of the natural world" we live in is fundamentally about agency: "quantum theory is fundamentally about agency". "In some way yet to be fully fleshed out, each quantum system seems to be a seat of active creativity and possibility, whose outward effect is as an "agent of change" for the parts of the world that come into contact with it. Observer and system, "agent and reagent," might be a way to put it." [1]

      1. QBism: Quantum Theory as a Hero's Handbook, Christopher A. Fuchs & Blake C. Stacey, https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07308

      Garrett, you should read my footnote about "The Dream Child Hypothesis."

      It talks about the emergence of dreams, and that they can exist on their own, before the self they have been waiting for exists. If the self never comes, dreams die, of course. But at least no self has died. Anyway, that's what the footnote is about-- the mathematics and the neuroscience.

      The author offers an interesting interpretation of the structural development of matter in ever more complex shells with the notion of "emergence". However, he does not offer a mathematical basis or any element thereof as to how emergence is construed. Short of proposing a mathematical view of how intentionality emerges, some mathematical sense of the very construct of emergence should have at least been proposed in my view. Good flowing writing style though.

      Hi Garrett,

      I really enjoyed reading your essay.I think you present a really good argument and clearly explain emergence. I wonder do you really think it could be emergence all the way down (rather than turtles) and no foundational level of material reality; Or was that just a clever and amusing way to wrap the essay up?

        Hi Georgina,

        happy that you contribute to the discussions!

        Do you elaborate an essay for the current contest? Your ideas are always interesting.

        Best wishes

        Stefan Weckbach

        Dear Antony Garrett Lisi,

        you give a concise summary of the concept of emergence. I like your clear and straightforward writing style and you make your main points easy to trace.

        You point out that the core idea of emergence is its cumulative effects of systematical side-effects of some compounded systems. I understand these side-effects being systematical per definition (this is what the concept of emergence does) as correlations. These correlations - i assume - can come about at all because the underlying physics can do a remarkable thing: in some sense it can divide apart different physical properties of a physical entity.

        For example a big molecule. It has many locations at its spatial extension that react different to a physical interaction with another, well defined, physical entity than other locations of it would in this situation. So there are local forces that force the molecule to behave like an entity which is compounded by some smaller entities. But there are other forces that penetrate the molecule. The global force of gravity for example acts onto the molecule as if it wouldn't be composed out of smaller entities. Gravity - as we handle it mathematically - does 'only' act onto the center of mass of the molecule.

        So, intuitively, i see that the concept of emergence is an important one in science. But here comes my 'but': Does the fact that there are systematical side-effects in nature justify that one is allowed to define what has been meant by 'systematical side-effects' (one has meant by it the term 'emergence') that 'emergence' is a systematical property of all of nature? In other words, is 'emergence' a fundamental principle that can be extrapolated without limits in both directions - towards the very small and towards the very large? Are there necessarily in every aspect of fundamental reality systematical side-effects - to the result that what you define in your essay as 'emergence' should better be objectively termed as a kind of universal law with a kind of inevitable tendency implicit to it (the inevitable tendency to produce new properties in a law-like manner)?

        How could one then be able to formalize this universal law by objectifying it into a mathematically sound theory? Surely, this could not be done so easily, because per definition, the term 'emergence' implies that one cannot know in advance the special circumstances of the cumulating side-effects. But as you wrote, in principle this should be absolutely possible, giving the example of reproducing all our perceptions, experiences and emotions by a computer simulation. In this sense, one had to define 'emergence' as mere data processing. And here comes my criticism: the gap between mere data processing and a consciousness associated with perceptions, experiences and emotions. I doubt that such a simulation is possible and cannot see any justification for it other than the axiom you started with, that all things have to emerge out of lower-level constituents. Surely, if one accepts this premise, then such a simulation seems to be not so far at reach. But i really doubt it and ask myself what specific side-effects must there be to turn a mere data processing task into an observer. I know that the answer should be that there are millions of such side-effects involved, accumulating to the desired result. But i would not bet on this, because the more side-effects there are involved, the more error-sensitive the system would be in my opinion and this should then become regularily obvious in some way to the emergent property called 'consciousness'. So i tend to believe that emergence has its advantages, but also its fundamental limits.

        8 days later

        Thanks for your interesting article, I enjoyed it.

        If we arrange some match sticks we get a triangle. Or we get a square.

        But to get a square we have to add one more matchstick.

        Are squares and triangles real? Or just perception?

        All perception of these properties is derived from consciousness, which is itself by this logic an emergent property of the arrangement of biological life.

        So are any of these properties actually real?