I'm making a religion based on Emergence.

[LMNO]

[insert suicide cult joke here]

[Captain Utopia]

No, what I was saying was I don't want you misrepresenting what I was saying. Which you were, and have, SEVERAL times in this thread.

The post starting with:

No, it posits...

being the most recent offense.

In other words, I'LL answer for what I wrote.

Anton was referencing basic emergent theory in his position, and I was replying in those terms.

Look, I'm sorry this upset you. I do think you are over-reacting though, as no-one is likely to confuse my interpretation of emergence, with your thoughts on a religion based upon emergence.

Please don't try to tell me that I can't make a posit based upon standard emergent theory though, just because you've started making a religion based upon it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Look, I'm sorry this upset you. I do think you are over-reacting though, as no-one is likely to confuse my interpretation of emergence, with your thoughts on a religion based upon emergence.

I am, given that I have no fucking clue what emergence is.

[Kai]

No, what I was saying was I don't want you misrepresenting what I was saying. Which you were, and have, SEVERAL times in this thread.

The post starting with:

No, it posits...

being the most recent offense.

In other words, I'LL answer for what I wrote.

Anton was referencing basic emergent theory in his position, and I was replying in those terms.

Look, I'm sorry this upset you. I do think you are over-reacting though, as no-one is likely to confuse my interpretation of emergence, with your thoughts on a religion based upon emergence.

Please don't try to tell me that I can't make a posit based upon standard emergent theory though, just because you've started making a religion based upon it.

Being as you don't have a fucking clue about emergence theory, I can attack you on other grounds as well. For example, nowhere in emergence theory is the claim that people are pawns to emergence, nor is there any talk of people not having independent selves.


Emergence is, stated simply, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an anti reductionist hypothesis about systems. Emergence occurs when you have a large number of similar parts in close proximity and interaction.  The resulting system of interaction is such that it cannot be completely explained by the activities of one part of the whole system. The resulting system is emergent because it's properties are different than the system it emerges from. With this comes creative novelity. In biology, the whole of all the processes comes from a simple strand of phosphates and ribose sugars joined to a sequence of nucleic acids, just four base pairs (the four being uracil or thymine), coding for only 20 amino acids present in the environment which then provide the structure for all life. Life gos so far and above chemistry as a whole of intermolecular networks of interactions that it is emergent from chemistry, the whole only makes sense as a whole, the individual units cannot explain the creative output of the whole system.


Also, just so you know, Emergence didn't come into the picture till last year. I've been talking about The Process of Sustaining for over 3 years now, with incorporation of emergence theory (with great results) happening only recently.

[Kai]

Another part of emergence theory is that reductionism can't predict the creative output of emergent systems. Try as you may, you can't predict, for example, the heart, via just physics. You'd have to work from the level of living organisms to understand the function of the heart. Another example is fluid dynamics. You can't determine fluid dynamics from the properties of one molecule of the fluid. The equations of fluid dynamics can't even be derived from atomic physics. This is molecules interacting with molecules, chemical emergence.

[Captain Utopia]

No, what I was saying was I don't want you misrepresenting what I was saying. Which you were, and have, SEVERAL times in this thread.

The post starting with:

No, it posits...

being the most recent offense.

In other words, I'LL answer for what I wrote.

Anton was referencing basic emergent theory in his position, and I was replying in those terms.

Look, I'm sorry this upset you. I do think you are over-reacting though, as no-one is likely to confuse my interpretation of emergence, with your thoughts on a religion based upon emergence.

Please don't try to tell me that I can't make a posit based upon standard emergent theory though, just because you've started making a religion based upon it.

Being as you don't have a fucking clue about emergence theory,

Jebus, what crawled up your crotch?

I can attack you on other grounds as well. For example, nowhere in emergence theory is the claim that people are pawns to emergence, nor is there any talk of people not having independent selves.

Anton invoked the perspective where a religion based upon emergence was stated to exist, its own creation determined by emergence as the "creative metaforce" in this universe. In that case, humans - as part of the emergent system which created that religion - cannot have accurately predicted or controlled the process, and can be considered 'pawns' from the perspective of that external domain.

In other words, they are 'pawns' because their individual actions are just part of a subset of a large potential set of interactions which have the same outcome - a vague definition of "a religion based upon emergence".

From the internal perspective of any one of these individual processes the individuals may indeed have "free will" or not, but it is entirely irrelevant as that's not the perspective or domain which was being discussed.

Honestly though, I think he was stringing out his joke as neither his point, nor my rebuttal, seem controversial.

Emergence is, stated simply, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an anti reductionist hypothesis about systems. Emergence occurs when you have a large number of similar parts in close proximity and interaction.  The resulting system of interaction is such that it cannot be completely explained by the activities of one part of the whole system. The resulting system is emergent because it's properties are different than the system it emerges from. With this comes creative novelity.

I know this. I live and breathe this. I've been viewing the world through this lens for over a decade now. I'm not sure why you feel the need to put me down just because I don't always use the same terms as you.

Also, just so you know, Emergence didn't come into the picture till last year. I've been talking about The Process of Sustaining for over 3 years now, with incorporation of emergence theory (with great results) happening only recently.

If I take the time to read that are you going to attack me with the same vigour as I work through a process of understanding it?

[Brotep]

Being as you don't have a fucking clue about emergence theory, I can attack you on other grounds as well.

BUT WHY DO WE HAVE TO FIGHT?   

[Kai]

Pawns indicates some sort of control.

I don't think you would ascribe control to a non-physical impersonal metaentity, not even an entity, and metaforce, not even a physically real force.

[Captain Utopia]

Pawns indicates some sort of control.

I don't think you would ascribe control to a non-physical impersonal metaentity, not even an entity, and metaforce, not even a physically real force.

I see what you mean, and I agree with you. What I was talking about was the solution space where every possibility was mapped out, so while an individuals actions would be defined on any particular path, they can only be described as 'pawns' if you introduce a narrative element, which I am prone to do. Confusing things.

[Kai]

Pawns indicates some sort of control.

I don't think you would ascribe control to a non-physical impersonal metaentity, not even an entity, and metaforce, not even a physically real force.

I see what you mean, and I agree with you. What I was talking about was the solution space where every possibility was mapped out, so while an individuals actions would be defined on any particular path, they can only be described as 'pawns' if you introduce a narrative element, which I am prone to do. Confusing things.

Well, I think the whole idea is that nothing is mapped out. Emergence changes a deterministic, static universe into a dynamic creative one. The increase in complexity allows for novel randomness.


I really like the term "irreducible complexity", but since the creationists took it over it feels dirty. Maybe I should re-coup it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

No, what I was saying was I don't want you misrepresenting what I was saying. Which you were, and have, SEVERAL times in this thread.

The post starting with:

No, it posits...

being the most recent offense.

In other words, I'LL answer for what I wrote.

Anton was referencing basic emergent theory in his position, and I was replying in those terms.

Look, I'm sorry this upset you. I do think you are over-reacting though, as no-one is likely to confuse my interpretation of emergence, with your thoughts on a religion based upon emergence.

Please don't try to tell me that I can't make a posit based upon standard emergent theory though, just because you've started making a religion based upon it.

Being as you don't have a fucking clue about emergence theory,

Jebus, what crawled up your crotch?

I can attack you on other grounds as well. For example, nowhere in emergence theory is the claim that people are pawns to emergence, nor is there any talk of people not having independent selves.

Anton invoked the perspective where a religion based upon emergence was stated to exist, its own creation determined by emergence as the "creative metaforce" in this universe. In that case, humans - as part of the emergent system which created that religion - cannot have accurately predicted or controlled the process, and can be considered 'pawns' from the perspective of that external domain.

In other words, they are 'pawns' because their individual actions are just part of a subset of a large potential set of interactions which have the same outcome - a vague definition of "a religion based upon emergence".

From the internal perspective of any one of these individual processes the individuals may indeed have "free will" or not, but it is entirely irrelevant as that's not the perspective or domain which was being discussed.

Honestly though, I think he was stringing out his joke as neither his point, nor my rebuttal, seem controversial.

Emergence is, stated simply, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an anti reductionist hypothesis about systems. Emergence occurs when you have a large number of similar parts in close proximity and interaction.  The resulting system of interaction is such that it cannot be completely explained by the activities of one part of the whole system. The resulting system is emergent because it's properties are different than the system it emerges from. With this comes creative novelity.

I know this. I live and breathe this. I've been viewing the world through this lens for over a decade now. I'm not sure why you feel the need to put me down just because I don't always use the same terms as you.

Also, just so you know, Emergence didn't come into the picture till last year. I've been talking about The Process of Sustaining for over 3 years now, with incorporation of emergence theory (with great results) happening only recently.

If I take the time to read that are you going to attack me with the same vigour as I work through a process of understanding it?

-10,000 points for incorrect use of magickal hosrie.

[Golden Applesauce]

The position I wish to take is that "I'm making a religion based on Emergence" is contrary to the spirit of Emergence, in that it posits an independent self that is acting on the world to construct a religion.

No, it posits that we are not independent selves, but pawns of emergence. As all religions are constructed, I'm not sure how else you expect a religion to come into existence.

Are you suggesting a more appropriate construction would be for an "Emergent Bible" to appear fully formed, printed and bound, without any human interaction? That's mythical, not emergent.

No, it would gradually come together out of the work of many individuals, in such a way that you could not predict that the Emergent Bible was occurring by looking at affairs at the level of the individual, only by looking at the societal or cultural level.

Who says it hasn't come together out of the work of many individuals? I'm not working in a vacuum here.

Certainly not me.  (just want to distance myself from fictokitty.)

out before flamewar proper starts

[Triple Zero]

i think he flamewar just been cooled a bit. which I am glad for, cause it's a cool subject that doesnt gain much from bickering. after all, it's a new religion based on emergence, not Discord

[LMNO]

Hey Kai, the term has been mangled beyond recognition these days, and I hesitate to use it with Ben Mack so close by, but what you're talking about seems to have a mild similarity to what Buckminster Fuller called "synergy".

[Kai]

Hey Kai, the term has been mangled beyond recognition these days, and I hesitate to use it with Ben Mack so close by, but what you're talking about seems to have a mild similarity to what Buckminster Fuller called "synergy".

Synergy is a term that I have seen used in relation to emergence theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

There some interesting terms in that article that I've not seen before:

categorical novum: a property that is not contained in the individual parts of the system but is a property of a system as a whole; an irreducible emergence property.

Unintended consequence: the result of a particular action that was not the intended results (ie serendipity, murphy's law).

Fallacy of Division: "when one reasons logically that if something is true of a thing it must be true of all or some of its parts" (ie individual neurons do not possess consciousness).

Weak Emergence: Where the emergent property is reducible to its individual parts, and the property is a model that is needed to describe a system's behavior.

Strong Emergence: Where the emergent property is not reducible to its individual parts (and therefore a categorical novum). This is the type of emergence I've been using, and the way S Kauffman uses the term in Reinventing the Sacred.

Along that same thought, Arthur Koestler stated, "it is the synergistic effects produced by wholes that are the very cause of the evolution of complexity in nature" and used the metaphor of Janus to illustrate how the two perspectives (strong or holistic vs. weak or reductionistic) should be treated as perspectives, not exclusives, and should work together to address the issues of emergence.(Koestler 1969)

There the term synergy is used.

Also, another nice quote:

The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe..The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts.

Emergentism: "the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts (or not) with reductionism"

There's also the section about first second and third order emergence structures, which is similar to what I mean by emergence level but not the same.