Emergence

In this video we will be giving a very high-level overview to the concept of emergence and the different aspects to it that we will be covering in more detail in future modules in the course. The dictionary definition of the term emergence comes from the latin word meaning ‘bring to light’. In this sense it means the process of becoming visible or coming into existence. In its most abstract and metaphorical sense emergence describes the universal process of creation that is both a very fundamental and pervasive feature to our world as it plays out in all types of systems.

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[phobostech]

Hands down, one of the top 5 best videos on emergence! The views should be in the millions.

[JaketheBakedSsnake]

Wow. Conscious perception is an emergent phenomenon, which reflexively mirrors the system it relies on.

[johndoh]

I wish youtube recommended this to me 7 years ago. This would have been awesome to learn about!

[NormenHansen]

Yeah, this would mean that what we experience is the universe experiencing itself - literally.

[eddieretelj]

Great introduction to emergence presented in a clear and concise way.

[MiamiUFO]

Incompleteness is no accident, it is ubiquitous. Strong emergency is a manifestation of this fact. Reductionism and its inseparable companion dogmatism are obviously very narrow. Great video, thanks for sharing.

[cliffordhodge]

Is dimensionality or extension an emergent property of the point?  Consider:  In geometry, they start by telling you the point has no dimension, no extension.  But the extension of the point is a line, which has dimensionality.  Where did it come from - adding up enough zeroes to get a non-zero?  Aside from this being an apparent theoretical problem with Euclidean geometry, I want to know if this would be a candidate for emergent-property-hood.

[viewst]

What we need is a Darwin, Einstein or Newton to revolutionise our understanding of this, somone who will publish a seminal work that push us into a new scientific paradigm.

[rodrigoax]

Thanks for the videos!!! Very useful for popularization and changing the paradigm!

[LeafyPeels]

If we want to get technical, the mass of a human being is not just the summation of its smaller parts. The mass of an individual proton and individual electron is more than the mass of a hydrogen atom because of bonding energy and the relationship between energy and matter. So the mass of a human is probably significantly less than the summation of all its subatomic particles when everything is considered.

[ryanbeitz]

This is great. But there's a Realist assumption at work in the distinction between epistemological and ontological emergence. The distinction assumes that there is a "real" (so-called "ontological") world "outside" the mind that our epistemological model would fail to account for (or would be unable to account for). This implies that there are our epistemic representations on the one hand, and the "real" ontological world on the other. Hence, my claim to an implicit Realist assumption.

Several schools of philosophy (Kant, Phenomenology, Idealism, Anti-Realism, Anti-Foundationalism, etc. etc.) reject this distinction. So might it be better to say to that epistemological emergence only occurs when we apply the wrong epistemological model to a particular system under analysis, such that our model was the incorrect one given the particular goal of that specific analysis? We can suspend the epistemological and ontological distinction then and just say that we employed the wrong representation instead of saying that our model didn't account for what's "really" the case ontologically. Consider the fact that light can be analyzed as either a wave or a particle when we apply different models for different purposes. By contrast, we have something like the analysis of the quality of light from an artistic perspective, which would be an analysis of the emergent properties of the wave/particle synergy--or "light" as a whole (or at a different level). So in my example we have different levels of analysis for different ends but nowhere did we claim that one level was the "real" one.

This may or may not be relevant to this series. But I thought I would mention it because a number of philosophers (Hilary Putnam, Michel Serres, David Chalmers, Michel Foucault for example) can be considered "anti-realists" in a sense; and some of them even rely heavily on systems theory in order to justify their metaphysical anti-realism. Nietzsche spells out this kind of anti-realism (albeit without the systems theory angle) when he makes the claim that "There are many kinds of eyes. ... Consequently there are many kinds of 'truths, ' and consequently there is no [single] truth" (see Will to Power page 540). Anyway, great videos!

[zagyex]

This is the P ≠ NP Problem, no? 13:43 You can verify (results caused by parts) but you cannot predict what parts result in (solve) due to complexity.

[kristiandalgard]

It seems to me that complex systems theory doesn't differentiate itself from physics by being holistic, but rather by having a different object of study.

Whereas physics mainly concerns itself with what things are, in essence, and what the actual properties of our universe are (coupling constants etc.), systems theory looks at structure—how things are related or positioned in regard to other things, crudely speaking, and how each thing, as well as the system as a whole, is affected by this. Systems theory appears to be derivable entirely through logic (is purely nomic?), and works fine with only the weaker epistemological form of emergence; physics ultimately relies on measurement. .

In reality, the division between physics and complexity theory or systems theory becomes a lot more blurry upon closer inspection. A physical phenomenon such as heat can easily be called emergent, for example—but heat is a result of concrete (though possibly contingent) natural laws and constants that govern the movement of particles in our part of the multiverse.

Generally, it may be fair to say that physics strives to move down the ladder of abstraction, to become ever more concrete and precise, while systems theory moves up to ever higher levels of abstraction. However, abstraction is still a form of reduction, in the sense that a larger number of idiosyncratic descriptions are reduced to fewer abstract ones—akin to unification, one of the most central themes in theoretical physics.

Besides understanding things by looking for simpler truths that govern them, systems theory and physics share fundamental principles like Occam's razor (in some form) and not least mathematics, which, notably, has reduction as parts of its core.

[mobiledevices]

I somehow think this whole concept of ontological /strong emergence is unstained and potentially bogus. As an intuition pump - does a circle emerge out of a bunch of dots? If you were to examine each dot individual you will find no such property of being part of a circle; However what is missed in this example is that a circle is a set of dots with their respective coordinates. The circle only emerges out of our discount of the coordinates of the dots as internal to the object.

To argue the counterpoint, it may be somewhat fair to say that these coordinates are not intrinsic property of dots because were the dots to be continuously moved, it can still retain identity without fix coordinate. We can trace its movements. This argument make sense, but rests on assumptions continuity of identity. Were arbitrary piece-wise non-bijective function be applied to dots, it would be non-sensible to assign dots identities independent of coordinates.

With scientific rigor, two things are only different regards if they can be distinguished from each other. Dots, as fundamentals, can only be *meaningfully* told apart by their coordinates. Thus it would appear that it is reasonable to not treat that location of an object as external.
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Emergence seems to refer to quality, which is phenomenal and happens when certain threshold passes each other.

[wordprocessbrian]

would a pattern that arises from three things in contrast count as emergence? (3/3+1/3) : (3/4+1/4) cycle three times . (12/3) : (12/4) = 4:3 = (3/3+1/3) : 1 . I find it easier to view the model as shapes as the fraction pieces.

[idegteke]

15:08 Note that the scope of the physics MIGHT not be infinite towards the “too tiny to perceive” and the “too far away to perceive” and a boundary might exist beyond which the perfectly valid and proven rules of physics (including the basic axioms and universal constants) are becoming indifferent – the exact same way as Darwin’s perfectly valid and undeniable theory (rule) of evolution is becoming indifferent when we reach back to the very first (most probably) one single cell that started to multiplicate as the very first step of the evolution – from that point backward, evolution is not directly helpful anymore in figuring out what the series of events (chemical evolution AKA abiogenesis) could have exactly been doing to create the very first cell. Also, the act of using the expression “most fundamental parts” abruptly invalidates every further attempts to discuss the possibility that the science of physics (and the scope of the axioms) might have a boundary beyond which the very (space-time-matter-energy) existence of the even smaller “things” are becoming indifferent (or incomplete) and exactly THAT part of the reality provides all the missing links that science is currently trying to find to make that step from a bunch of biological cells that I physically consist of, to this very comment that I have just produced. Physicists are denying the existence of such boundaries as a matter of professional axiom – in spite of the implications of the perfectly undeniable quantum eraser experiment which is just as strong indication of the existence of the above boundary as anything can ever be. How many years must go by without a valid explanation for all the „quantum weirdness”, and without any more significant discovery? When can we finally consider scientifically proven fact that science itself necessarily HAS boundaries. (Don’t read any further until then: all the science that can ever be constructed by the human race is now proven to be no more than a product/result/subset of things that are beyond its own scope.)

[sohailarshad]

Is Black swan event an example of Strong Emergence ..?

[dsennett]

Are the keys actually equal area though?

[rogermoody]

It’s structure within structure within structure!

[SelectHawk]

Is there even such a thing as hard emergence? Polar solvents like water are at best a soft emergence, as the "solvent" property can be explained with the charges of the component atoms and the effects of their relative electromagnetically on the covalent bonds between them. Genuine question. I am a reductionist trying to understand the concept of emergence.