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OortCloudAtlas's profile
Michael W. Taft
Michael W. Taft
Michael W. Taft
@OortCloudAtlas

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Michael W. Taft

@OortCloudAtlas

🦇 Sentient comet 💫 Meditation freak 🙏🏻 Teacher 🍄 Author 🎙Podcaster 📚 SF nerd 🤖 Serial comma enthusiast 🌏 Raised by wolves 🐺 Bad influence 🧝🏻‍♂️

Oakland, CA
deconstructingyourself.com
Joined May 2008

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    Michael W. Taft‏ @OortCloudAtlas Jul 26

    Q: Is "emergence" (as in "emergent property") a real thing, or just a cover term for complex interactions we don't understand? Often it seems like it could be substituted by the phrase "then something magic happens".

    8:42 AM - 26 Jul 2018
    • 14 Likes
    • Archivo Etéreo purpleposeidon Daniel Thorson Dan Garfield Uncarved Bitmap Peter McEwen alex lindholm Sindre
    14 replies 0 retweets 14 likes
      1. Michael W. Taft‏ @OortCloudAtlas Jul 26

        Thanks for all your input, everybody. If I use the word in talks, I'll be careful about exactly how I'm using it.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. New conversation
      2. Aella‏Verified account @Aella_Girl Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        Lesswrong has a few articles about this:https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8QzZKw9WHRxjR4948/the-futility-of-emergence …

        1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
      3. Michael W. Taft‏ @OortCloudAtlas Jul 26
        Replying to @Aella_Girl

        Perfect!

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. ChristZen‏ @christ_zen Jul 27
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        Tangentially related, I always thought the word “emergency” was kinda odd in the context of “emergence”. e.g. “There’s a big emergence happening right now. Yeah, things are kind of emergence-y at the moment.”

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. Michael W. Taft‏ @OortCloudAtlas Jul 27
        Replying to @christ_zen

        "Something big is emerging!"

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Sindre‏ @Triquetrea Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        Pretty sure it's both. It's explicable in a lot of physical science (causal chains for chemical reactions etc.), and as a philosophical construct, as far as I'm aware. But the woo-woo "emergence" is of course different, and I'm pretty sure people use it that way in debates.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. Michael J. Kimball‏ @ethnowise Jul 26
        Replying to @Triquetrea @OortCloudAtlas

        I was a student at the Santa Fe Institute’s Complex Systems Summer School in the early 90s. At least back then, emergent properties could be induced, observed and described, but not explained. Maybe it’s different nowadays, but I don’t think so. Still woo-woo.

        1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      4. Sindre‏ @Triquetrea Jul 26
        Replying to @ethnowise @OortCloudAtlas

        In that case, I may have to check my definitions again. I understood emergent properties to include - for an abstract example - a compound having properties not present in any component element, but which can be explained by the molecular structure of the compound itself.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      5. Sindre‏ @Triquetrea Jul 26
        Replying to @Triquetrea @ethnowise @OortCloudAtlas

        As far as I'm aware, such properties can be comfortably explained with current understanding of molecular dynamics, chemistry etc. But I know i sometimes use words recklessly, so I wouldn't be surprised if my internal definition of an "emergent property" doesn't match consensus.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      6. Michael J. Kimball‏ @ethnowise Jul 26
        Replying to @Triquetrea @OortCloudAtlas

        Maybe the definition and mechanisms of emergent properties are clear for microbiological and chemical systems, but they sure aren’t for sociocultural systems! Nevertheless, we persist.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      7. Sindre‏ @Triquetrea Jul 26
        Replying to @ethnowise @OortCloudAtlas

        They certainly aren't uniformly clear, regardless of domain, but I do think they are sometimes explicable. But yes, as close to a scientific background as I get is psychology or, recently, linguistics, where emergent is usually the functional equivalent of "a wizard did it".

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      8. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Dan Jones.‏ @djon3s Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        Property of a group: co-operation. Not analyzable in terms of individual parts.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. Dan Jones.‏ @djon3s Jul 26
        Replying to @djon3s @OortCloudAtlas

        No amount of predicates about individuals of group leads to logical entailment of "co-operates"

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      4. Dan Jones.‏ @djon3s Jul 26
        Replying to @djon3s @OortCloudAtlas

        Emergent property. Literature on "super plural" logic discusses this.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      5. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Dan Garfield‏ @danlistensto Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        in which @PeterSjostedtH discusses some of the problems of so-called "emergentism" in very much the same vein that you're pointing to here, a cover term for something not well defined or understoodhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2442&v=B7B_RmZQp5Q …

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. JG Faust‏ @faustroll Jul 26
        Replying to @danlistensto @OortCloudAtlas @PeterSjostedtH

        "Epistemological conceptions of emergence have clear and straightforward applications in current scientific contexts." https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/properties-emergent/ … "Whether there are any instances of ontological emergence is highly controversial."

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. Shaunyata‏ @shaunbartone Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        In ecology & life science emergence refers to forms and functions that would not occur but for the substrate of other forms and functions that connect together in particular ways to make them possible. Human body is best example: biochemistry: cells: organs: organ systems: body

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      1. Chris Poundwhite‏ @ChrisPoundwhite Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        I think it's both, depending on who you ask. I tend to go with the idea that emergent properties are always reducible to their constituents.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Peter McEwen‏ @techgnostic Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        I thought most of the language signifiers used to describe causes and conditions were cover terms for complex interactions better explained by mathematics. 'Emergent' is def an edge case tho. Or as McKenna would call it, 'novelty'.

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      1. albert grabb‏ @algrab Jul 26
        Replying to @OortCloudAtlas

        For me, "then" doesn't feel quite right. More like "emergence = magic just happening now"

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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