Coldcall said:
SDetection:
"Hi, I'm not getting that, which laws that have emerged?"
The laws and forces in the universe have all emerged from the BB. As a simple example: Electro-magnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces all emerged from a unified force as the universe cooled post BB.
"How the "whole is now greater than the sum of its parts' ?, could you give me an example?"
All biology is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. A simple test is to ask yourself whether by understanding an atom you understand how the human body functions? The answer is No. So a human is greater than the sum of his/her parts.
The entire concept of emergence is one that I find difficult to come to terms with. Energy is a zero sum reality from what we understand. It cannot be gained it cannot be lost. When we come to the conclusion that some how "the whole is greater than the parts" we have to explain how a system has gained this additional energy.
We hear about emergence alot. In natural systems people use it to describe "collective consciousness". The funny thing is that this term isn't just some far fetched fringe idea. It's used to describe how complexity is achieved from simple starting conditions.
I'll jump to ants again. A single ant is quite simple. By itself it would never accomplish much. A colony of ants however seem to converge together to create a system much more complex than can be described by many ants. This is emergence. The "collective consciousness" of the colony.
It doesn't stop with ants. Any system that appears to show more complexity than it should will quickly have the "emergence" label slapped on it. We hear about it a lot when we discuss consciousness. How in the world can simple neurons create such a complex perception of reality? Instead of trying to come to a better understanding of this process, some are satisfied to just label it as something beyond understanding and move on.
Sounds like mysticism doesn't it? It does to me too. We can look at fractal patterns and see how simple starting conditions applied in many iterations come together to form complex systems without the need to invoke emergence.
Is a combustion engine emergent? If you say no then I'd like to understand why. No single part of the engine is capable by itself of performing the task that the complete engine does. By it's very definition complex systems become more complex the higher up the chain you go. It's not a stretch of the imagination to make the statement that humans are more complex than atoms. It's a given. I don't understand a need to make a connection between that and stating that because we understand atoms, we must be able to understand humans otherwise there is a mystical energy-free force called emergence taking place.
Interaction, not emergence. When we look at individual parts we entirely dismiss the interaction that takes place with other parts. It's this interaction that creates complexity, and will never be seen as we break down the parts. Interaction is a property of a part, just one that isn't seen when you're not considering the group. Because it's a property of the parts then the sum doesn't increase!
^^^
The single most convulted thing I've ever written.
To sum it up. Emergence isn't required to come to terms with complexity. Only the consideration of interaction. Interaction is a property of parts which is only observable when amongst a group. This explains why when we only look at an individual part, we cannot describe or understand the system.
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