Purposes and goals of mindfucks

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Although, stylistically I am seeing a lot in common with DK. The transparent attempt to bait Kai by blatantly misconstruing that post was clumsier than what I'd expect from DK though.

[Cain]

I like to think of new users as precious and unique snowflakes.  It would be unfair to compare them to people they will never meet.

Either that, or it'll just give them ideas.

[fomenter]

its more of an architype than a comparison he is not a  dk or arifelis but has similar poster/troll personality type

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh wow, I'd forgotten about arifelis!

[Kai]

Although, stylistically I am seeing a lot in common with DK. The transparent attempt to bait Kai by blatantly misconstruing that post was clumsier than what I'd expect from DK though.

I'm not as easily baited as I used to be though. I understand how stupid drama makes me, these days.

[Triple Zero]

The Tao you can discuss is not the true Tao.  (Alternate forms: replace Tao with System, Way, or Chao)

Who says?

Kurt Gödel, for one.

Enough with the symbolism? Mathematics paints a pretty picture and religion makes nice rhyme, within a hundred years Gödel will be proved wrong

Do you also think that Pythagoras' a²+b²=c² will be proven wrong? Or the quadratic formula?

How about Turing's proof of undecidability of the Halting Problem?

[Triple Zero]

I think I know pretty much as much I'm going to need to know.

thanks for playing.

[Captain Utopia]

The Tao you can discuss is not the true Tao.  (Alternate forms: replace Tao with System, Way, or Chao)

Who says?

Kurt Gödel, for one.

Enough with the symbolism? Mathematics paints a pretty picture and religion makes nice rhyme, within a hundred years Gödel will be proved wrong

Do you also think that Pythagoras' a²+b²=c² will be proven wrong? Or the quadratic formula?

How about Turing's proof of undecidability of the Halting Problem?

Honestly, I was just trying to goad a response which explained yhnmzw's statement in terms I could understand with the least amount of abstraction and self-referential symbolism. If you start with the assumption that Gödel is wrong, can it still be explained? If so, how?

[Captain Utopia]

I think I know pretty much as much I'm going to need to know.

thanks for playing.

That's a contextual misquote. I think I know pretty much as much as I'm going to need to know about stamp-collecting, and cheese shops in Belgium. I feel the same way about evolution, but not emergence. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

That isn't to diss any of those subjects, it's just a simple statement to the fact that I, personally, do not see any additional value from studying in those areas at the moment. If I did, I would.

[Triple Zero]

Where to begin.....Emergence, as a phenomenon, can be summed up by the statement "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". In other words, when you have close knit systems of similar bits and pieces in interaction with each other, there is a certain level of interaction that yields higher structure and properties than that of the individual parts. These higher systems are not reduceable; they have their own set of rules while not violating the rules below. For example, biology is an emergent system from chemistry; it doesn't violate rules of chemical action but it also has it's own set of rules. That emergent creativity and complexity is a feature of nucleic acid chains and protiens, both of which are long sequences of relatively simple parts put in close interaction which ends up building something far more complex than individual interactions.

Evolution is not a subset of Emergence. I'm assuming you're using the word in the biological sense and not the general sense for this (and if you are using the general sense, the whole thing is different but similar). Bio-evolution, also known as descent with modification (the term C Darwin preferred) or transmutation (the term I prefer as evolution comes with the connotation of "unrolling" onto perfection, which isn't the real case) is composed of two parts. How much each of these things are in play and important to transmutation is an argument that continues.

The first part is the random aspect. You could call this the Emergence aspect. This is random mutation, creative emergence of new sequences by random events. This is also genetic drift, the change in population gene frequencies over time simply due to randomness. Again, many scientists dissagree how important genetic drift is to transmutation, but all will agree that mutation is important for creating varation. That's where creative emergence is in transmutation (ignoring ecology and other higher Emergence systems for the space of this; models filter reality for our sake, so we don't go nuts trying to hold it in concept all at once, break it into parts), in the new and different sequences of ammino acids that come out as novelity.

The second part is Selection. When you have variation in a continuum, the environment  will play selectively on that variation, as some will be more suited to continuing under the conditions than others. Darwin stated it as such 1) Variation exists [ie Emergence creates variation] 2) Some of that variation is inheritable [the variation exists in a continuum] 3) there is overproduction of offspring [there is more variation than will continue; obviously, or there wouldn't be anything, or the universe would be static] 4) there are selective deaths [the environment whatever that may be works selectively on the variation and some of that does not continue]. Therefore, through successive generations, species change over time. That's transmutation, which includes both Emergence and Selection in function.

Actually, using the brackets above you can apply the Emergence/Selection paradigm to any non static process in the universe (is there a such thing as a static process? O.o). Emergence, complexity and creativity arising from interactions between parts, leads to variation in a continuum, and the interactions with the environment lead to the continuation of some of that variation and the discontinuation of others. At the same time, Emergence continues with creativity. Therefore the universe didn't just wink out of existence in self annihilation, and isn't a static featureless place; change is constant.

I hope the above doesn't fall on deaf ears.

It didnt.

However, I kind of wonder, why do you call the random/mutation aspect Emergence, and the selection aspect as its own category?

The way (and the why) selection happens and even the "simple" fact that it happens is determined by a complex process that is (in a sense) larger than its parts, so IMO it is just as much part of the Emergence process as mutation is.

However, it isnt really that I think either of them are "part of" Emergence. You called it a meta-process, which is probably the best way to describe it, not a "part of" relationship, but more something above, underneath, and in between the things, but not quite really. I might go as far as to call it Astral Lube, even

[Thurnez Isa]

The Tao you can discuss is not the true Tao.  (Alternate forms: replace Tao with System, Way, or Chao)

Who says?

Kurt Gödel, for one.

Enough with the symbolism? Mathematics paints a pretty picture and religion makes nice rhyme, within a hundred years Gödel will be proved wrong

Do you also think that Pythagoras' a²+b²=c² will be proven wrong? Or the quadratic formula?

How about Turing's proof of undecidability of the Halting Problem?

Honestly, I was just trying to goad a response which explained yhnmzw's statement in terms I could understand with the least amount of abstraction and self-referential symbolism. If you start with the assumption that Gödel is wrong, can it still be explained? If so, how?

might I add this unicorn also uses rainbows to clean your room and will protect your home from invaders
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[the last yatto]

[Cramulus]

[Kai]

Where to begin.....Emergence, as a phenomenon, can be summed up by the statement "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". In other words, when you have close knit systems of similar bits and pieces in interaction with each other, there is a certain level of interaction that yields higher structure and properties than that of the individual parts. These higher systems are not reduceable; they have their own set of rules while not violating the rules below. For example, biology is an emergent system from chemistry; it doesn't violate rules of chemical action but it also has it's own set of rules. That emergent creativity and complexity is a feature of nucleic acid chains and protiens, both of which are long sequences of relatively simple parts put in close interaction which ends up building something far more complex than individual interactions.

Evolution is not a subset of Emergence. I'm assuming you're using the word in the biological sense and not the general sense for this (and if you are using the general sense, the whole thing is different but similar). Bio-evolution, also known as descent with modification (the term C Darwin preferred) or transmutation (the term I prefer as evolution comes with the connotation of "unrolling" onto perfection, which isn't the real case) is composed of two parts. How much each of these things are in play and important to transmutation is an argument that continues.

The first part is the random aspect. You could call this the Emergence aspect. This is random mutation, creative emergence of new sequences by random events. This is also genetic drift, the change in population gene frequencies over time simply due to randomness. Again, many scientists dissagree how important genetic drift is to transmutation, but all will agree that mutation is important for creating varation. That's where creative emergence is in transmutation (ignoring ecology and other higher Emergence systems for the space of this; models filter reality for our sake, so we don't go nuts trying to hold it in concept all at once, break it into parts), in the new and different sequences of ammino acids that come out as novelity.

The second part is Selection. When you have variation in a continuum, the environment  will play selectively on that variation, as some will be more suited to continuing under the conditions than others. Darwin stated it as such 1) Variation exists [ie Emergence creates variation] 2) Some of that variation is inheritable [the variation exists in a continuum] 3) there is overproduction of offspring [there is more variation than will continue; obviously, or there wouldn't be anything, or the universe would be static] 4) there are selective deaths [the environment whatever that may be works selectively on the variation and some of that does not continue]. Therefore, through successive generations, species change over time. That's transmutation, which includes both Emergence and Selection in function.

Actually, using the brackets above you can apply the Emergence/Selection paradigm to any non static process in the universe (is there a such thing as a static process? O.o). Emergence, complexity and creativity arising from interactions between parts, leads to variation in a continuum, and the interactions with the environment lead to the continuation of some of that variation and the discontinuation of others. At the same time, Emergence continues with creativity. Therefore the universe didn't just wink out of existence in self annihilation, and isn't a static featureless place; change is constant.

I hope the above doesn't fall on deaf ears.

It didnt.

However, I kind of wonder, why do you call the random/mutation aspect Emergence, and the selection aspect as its own category?

The way (and the why) selection happens and even the "simple" fact that it happens is determined by a complex process that is (in a sense) larger than its parts, so IMO it is just as much part of the Emergence process as mutation is.

However, it isnt really that I think either of them are "part of" Emergence. You called it a meta-process, which is probably the best way to describe it, not a "part of" relationship, but more something above, underneath, and in between the things, but not quite really. I might go as far as to call it Astral Lube, even

Because Emergence is addition and Selection is subtraction. Of variation I mean. Emergence by itself leads to an incoherent unorganized mass of variation. Selection by itself leads to stasis. The two together lead to creative refinement. You could argue that selection is just a metaproperty of the metaforce of Emergence (you need variation before it can be selected upon, and the selection is caused by the environment which is yet more variation to be selected upon), but I'm not sure I'm ready to delve into that particular spiritual circular loop right this moment. KE Peters called the universe a sacred dance between Emergence and Selection.  I thought that was a pretty apt metaphor until just now.

Okay, maybe you can help me wrap my head around the feedback loop of Emergence/Selection, as of Selection as a metaproperty of Emergence. Would you mind doing that? I'm just having a bit of trouble making a symbolic map right now.

[Captain Utopia]

Selection makes more sense to me as promotion, rather than subtraction. It doesn't destroy variation in the same sense that Emergence creates it.