Talk:Emergence

Un-notified Litigation by Fourdee against Psychohistorian

There is a discussion about "un-notified litigation" available at Talk:Emergence/Litigation which was moved because it does not directly relate to the content of the article.

Emergence is not that complicated

About the mathematical proof of the emergence. can not any closed figure be used as a simpler proof??

I mean, you can make a circle of bend lines, and only when all the lines are put into place the emergence shows.

About strong emergency

The sentence: "Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of a high-level system on its components" suggests that there is always "downward causation" (probably influenced by Jaegwon Kim's argument about the "overdetermination" of the mental over the physical domain, if you consider the mental as strongly emergent). However, that is not true: you can say that the properties of a strongly emergent phenomenon supervene on the properties of its building blocks (just as the properties of a water molecule supervene on the properties of its building blocks: hydrogen and oxygen atoms). But that is not the same as the other way round: "downward causation", where the water molecule is supposed to change the properties of its building blocks. Moreover, "downward causation" is never a direct reversal of cause and effect, but always via a detour - that is normally called "feedback".

Moreover, the question is whether you can even consider the mental domain as a complex system as a case of strong emergence. I propose to change this.

Ypan1944 (talk) 15:36, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

As always, this will be a matter of checking what the best sources say about the matter, and following what they say as strictly as possible without close paraphrasing. Generalrelative (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Philip Ball article on emergence in Quanta magazine

• Ball, Philip (2024-06-10). "The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 2024-06-17.

Peaceray (talk) 00:31, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Spontaneous vs information-templated emergence

I want to expand the article to include the concepts of spontaneous vs information-templated emergence. The explicit formulation of this perspective helps in tying together the related concepts of information, self-organisation and emergence.

I suggest the following paragraph:

In "On the Nature of Information: An Evolutionary Perspective," emergence is viewed as the process by which complex structures and behaviours arise from simple interactions and patterns in physical, biological, cultural, and civilizational systems. This perspective posits that all recurring structures emerge either spontaneously (in the physical layer) or through templated processes driven by underlying information (in the biological and higher layers of emergence). Information is defined as a mutatable structure that can replicate and evolve, acting as both a product and driver of evolution. This perspective highlights the role of information in creating layers of self-organization, where new properties and dynamics emerge that are not present in the individual components. Wouter at KTH (talk) 16:43, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for engaging here. I do appreciate it. I am currently reading your paper and find it compelling. I understand that this paper is very new, but can you point me to any WP:SECONDARY coverage of your work in this same vein? Generalrelative (talk) 16:46, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

This is, as far as I know, the first pure materialistic analysis of what information is. As a matter of fact, information emerges as "structure that can mutate" when simply analysing all different origins of structure.

There is a lot of work in the realm of biology (Kauffman et al.) around this topic, and evolution in the cultural layer has been described. The main authors and works are referenced in the arXiv paper.

However, I think this is the first time this picture of information is sewn together over all scientific borders.

//W Wouter at KTH (talk) 16:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

That's kinda what I thought, and it's what makes the paper so interesting (to me). It does, however, mean that it's probably not yet what we call WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC content. Even though you have a legitimate claim to being subject-matter expert, this still looks a lot like using Wikipedia as a platform to publicize original thought, which violates our core policy WP:NOR. An encyclopedia is, after all, not meant to present the cutting edge but rather the mainstream view. Once your work on this topic has been thoroughly peer-reviewed and discussed by the mainstream scholarly community, I would strongly encourage you to post here –– on the talk page –– again. I personally love this kind of thinking, and hope to see it included when the relevant conditions are met. If you disagree with my analysis, you are free to post about it at a community noticeboard like WP:NORN to get more eyes on the situation. Cheers, Generalrelative (talk) 17:12, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The views in the arXiv manuscript are not wrong (and I believe neither trivial) - this is simply looking at known facts with new glasses. Therefore it should not be controversial to publish this on Wikipedia. Wouter at KTH (talk) 17:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Wrt "new glasses", see my comment above about WP:NOR. Generalrelative (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)