Andreas Laurencius's Blog - Posts Tagged "emergence-principle"
The Emergence Principle: Our Current Understanding of the Universe
Someone came to my room and said, "Why do you spend so much time here?"
Without turning my back, I said, "Studying."
The person said, "You know … you can do many better things than studying."
Without much thinking, I replied, "Many? Yes. Better? Nah." And I continued writing.
I wasn't quite listening to the person when the person spoke again, "I think you've known plenty."
The person then continued, "Why don't you share what you know to the world?"
My chest jolted, my hand shook, it messed up my writing. He might be right, I thought. I looked out the door and walked out my room and heard that everyone was downstairs. I went down to ask who had been in my room but had second thoughts. I refilled my drink, took some food, and went outside.
•••
The World As We Know It
Many, if not all of us, don't know what they are doing.
Besides the fact that one can only access very little of the consistent part of the information the world gives out at a given time, there are so many inconsistencies in the world that it is impossible to know what the right thing to do is.
But as we turn on the news, people venerate words like money and globalization as if they know what they are doing.
They don't.
The Emergence Principle is well known in philosophy, science, and art, so some of us may be familiar with the concept. Emergence is a phenomenon whereby larger entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities such that the larger entities exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit (Wikipedia).
J.S. Mill wrote:
Or as G. H. Lewes put it:
The idea of emergence arises out of our continuing realizations that we fail to understand what is going on. For example, in biology, we currently don't know how brain cells give rise to consciousness. In chemistry, we currently don't know how inorganic substances give rise to life. In physics, we currently don't know how quantum mechanics gives rise to classical mechanics.
If the simpler entities from which the larger entities arise are of any significance to the larger entities, we can see emergence as the result of some information being taken away from the simpler entities and their subsequent system and some information being introduced to the simpler entities and their subsequent system. 'Taken away' doesn't have to mean lost and 'introduced' doesn't have to mean new. The sum of these mechanisms can — at least, during its short existence — be called a phenomenon, and sometimes a phenomenon repeats itself and thus is observed as having a purpose, a word that isn't necessarily anthropic.
Part of this phenomenon can be defined, let's call it the defined phenomenon; part of this phenomenon can't be defined, let's call it the undefined phenomenon. We can explain how a cell synthesizes protein, but if we look closer, we have no idea what is going on. We can explain how the human body works to a very great detail, but if we look closer, we have no idea what is going on. Nevertheless, despite our failure to understand everything, we can choose to look past the undefined phenomena and still conclude that everything that happened is explainable. Studying emergence is important in understanding how things are. For example, it is very important in neuroscience where we are trying to find the most effective way to decipher the brain, one of the most complicated structures in the universe.
Turbulence, weather, and consciousness have both defined and undefined phenomena; not to mention South East Asia with its tropical places and warm people, The Middle East with its unparalleled exotics, Europe with its philosophers and kings, Canada with its smile, the US with its faith, Central America with its people and coastline, South America with its football and Amazonian secrets, Nepal and Tibet with its seclusion, India and Pakistan with its ethical cultures, China with its wisdom, Japan with its order, Australia with its absolution, Africa with its gems and savannas. We also have forgiveness, love, greed, wars, genocide, waste and pollution, slavery, death, hatred, wiping out other species.
They are all emergent phenomena. Some of them are more defined than the others. Some of them can be regarded as totally undefined.
Our Questions
We've had the time to gather some information. And now come our questions: Why are we here? Why are some phenomena more defined than the others?
Several people try to make their phenomena defined: to cure cancer, to build clean energy sources, to build a beautiful world, to educate others, to create beautiful music, to write beautiful stories, to explore the unknown, to cure animals, to feed hungry species. Several people have purposes that can't be defined and impose these purposes on others by globalizing them as if they know what they are doing; purposes like to own more (thus make others own less), to create many brands and produce more than what are needed and thus waste their own backyard, to compete and to deforest a forest in order to be able to compete, to overpopulate a sea, to pollute our drinking water, to kill in order to move diamonds from the Earth to one's body, to quickly or slowly kill others.
A neurologist won't have a job if there is no neurology patient; are patients truly a neurologist's purpose?
Hundreds of mice were decapitated by a neuroscientist who was looking for something; was being decapitated truly the mice's purpose?
When a human first opens his eyes, does he need to construct his own heart and lungs and brain and the Earth before he looks around and asks what he is here for?
In my paper, I wrote that in regard to epistemology, it is not acceptable to find an answer by asking a question because a question is looking to the future (something that doesn’t exist), but it might be acceptable to find an answer to everything by observation of past events thus by appreciation of the cause (the ‘past’/all that exist).
Why did we war so much? Don't ask, it is because we have globalized a system that is based on the barter system, a system people created because they were egotistical and didn't want to share.
Why do people argue? Don't ask, it is because we have only one Earth and different people crave different things.
Why do we run out of resources and many species become extinct? Don't ask, it is because we have globalized a system that is based on supply and demand notwithstanding the fact that Earth has never multiplied itself to compensate for humans' demands [read: stupidity] and humans most likely will never leave Earth.
Can a person understand this? We can look at a person's expression and — if that person isn't a good liar — know the answer to this question even before we ask that person. An interesting question neuroscientists are trying to solve: If we scan the person's brain, will we be able to know the answer to this question before we ask the person?
Try any questions. If you give yourself time to think, you will come to the same conclusion: if the universe lets us know any information about itself and this information is of any significance, we don't need to ask any questions because our questions have been answered before we even ask them.
And now comes our next question: Why did I write this article?
I wrote this article because it had been my observation that if the governments wanted to change the world, they were almost powerless to change how things had become: the governments failed because of us. One thing we could do is we could invite all the world's past leaders, current leaders, and aspiring leaders to stop doing what they are doing, gather around, and rethink the answer to this question: Are we a successful species? Because it is clear that our knowledge is only about the past and thus the only answer that is accessible to us has already been made accessible to us: we are not that successful.
And finally, our planet could have had a very different history; I have written about this in my paper. We have had many tragedies; and we, with all our stories and successes, are the result of these tragedies. Should we do it again? Should we war again? Should we destroy everything that has been given to us including the memory of those who have shaped our history as if they mean nothing? Ignorance is never bliss because even a plant knows a thing or two. Ignorance is that which says that all we've been through, our history, the universe and our place in it doesn't matter.
This is not about right or wrong. This is not at all about what one should do and what one shouldn't do. We can, of course, find our own answers to our questions and feel satisfied with the answers, but give this a thought: if one's past is of any meaning to one, enlightenment seems certain, and despite one's defined successes and failures as a species, eventually it is not what one does that defines one so much as what one knows.
So, do we still have questions about life? Or have there been many things in life about which we have been able to say "I think I've known plenty"?
Without turning my back, I said, "Studying."
The person said, "You know … you can do many better things than studying."
Without much thinking, I replied, "Many? Yes. Better? Nah." And I continued writing.
I wasn't quite listening to the person when the person spoke again, "I think you've known plenty."
The person then continued, "Why don't you share what you know to the world?"
My chest jolted, my hand shook, it messed up my writing. He might be right, I thought. I looked out the door and walked out my room and heard that everyone was downstairs. I went down to ask who had been in my room but had second thoughts. I refilled my drink, took some food, and went outside.
•••
The World As We Know It
Many, if not all of us, don't know what they are doing.
Besides the fact that one can only access very little of the consistent part of the information the world gives out at a given time, there are so many inconsistencies in the world that it is impossible to know what the right thing to do is.
But as we turn on the news, people venerate words like money and globalization as if they know what they are doing.
They don't.
The Emergence Principle is well known in philosophy, science, and art, so some of us may be familiar with the concept. Emergence is a phenomenon whereby larger entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities such that the larger entities exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit (Wikipedia).
J.S. Mill wrote:
All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself.
Or as G. H. Lewes put it:
Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same – their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.
The idea of emergence arises out of our continuing realizations that we fail to understand what is going on. For example, in biology, we currently don't know how brain cells give rise to consciousness. In chemistry, we currently don't know how inorganic substances give rise to life. In physics, we currently don't know how quantum mechanics gives rise to classical mechanics.
If the simpler entities from which the larger entities arise are of any significance to the larger entities, we can see emergence as the result of some information being taken away from the simpler entities and their subsequent system and some information being introduced to the simpler entities and their subsequent system. 'Taken away' doesn't have to mean lost and 'introduced' doesn't have to mean new. The sum of these mechanisms can — at least, during its short existence — be called a phenomenon, and sometimes a phenomenon repeats itself and thus is observed as having a purpose, a word that isn't necessarily anthropic.
Part of this phenomenon can be defined, let's call it the defined phenomenon; part of this phenomenon can't be defined, let's call it the undefined phenomenon. We can explain how a cell synthesizes protein, but if we look closer, we have no idea what is going on. We can explain how the human body works to a very great detail, but if we look closer, we have no idea what is going on. Nevertheless, despite our failure to understand everything, we can choose to look past the undefined phenomena and still conclude that everything that happened is explainable. Studying emergence is important in understanding how things are. For example, it is very important in neuroscience where we are trying to find the most effective way to decipher the brain, one of the most complicated structures in the universe.
Turbulence, weather, and consciousness have both defined and undefined phenomena; not to mention South East Asia with its tropical places and warm people, The Middle East with its unparalleled exotics, Europe with its philosophers and kings, Canada with its smile, the US with its faith, Central America with its people and coastline, South America with its football and Amazonian secrets, Nepal and Tibet with its seclusion, India and Pakistan with its ethical cultures, China with its wisdom, Japan with its order, Australia with its absolution, Africa with its gems and savannas. We also have forgiveness, love, greed, wars, genocide, waste and pollution, slavery, death, hatred, wiping out other species.
They are all emergent phenomena. Some of them are more defined than the others. Some of them can be regarded as totally undefined.
Our Questions
We've had the time to gather some information. And now come our questions: Why are we here? Why are some phenomena more defined than the others?
Several people try to make their phenomena defined: to cure cancer, to build clean energy sources, to build a beautiful world, to educate others, to create beautiful music, to write beautiful stories, to explore the unknown, to cure animals, to feed hungry species. Several people have purposes that can't be defined and impose these purposes on others by globalizing them as if they know what they are doing; purposes like to own more (thus make others own less), to create many brands and produce more than what are needed and thus waste their own backyard, to compete and to deforest a forest in order to be able to compete, to overpopulate a sea, to pollute our drinking water, to kill in order to move diamonds from the Earth to one's body, to quickly or slowly kill others.
A neurologist won't have a job if there is no neurology patient; are patients truly a neurologist's purpose?
Hundreds of mice were decapitated by a neuroscientist who was looking for something; was being decapitated truly the mice's purpose?
When a human first opens his eyes, does he need to construct his own heart and lungs and brain and the Earth before he looks around and asks what he is here for?
In my paper, I wrote that in regard to epistemology, it is not acceptable to find an answer by asking a question because a question is looking to the future (something that doesn’t exist), but it might be acceptable to find an answer to everything by observation of past events thus by appreciation of the cause (the ‘past’/all that exist).
Why did we war so much? Don't ask, it is because we have globalized a system that is based on the barter system, a system people created because they were egotistical and didn't want to share.
Why do people argue? Don't ask, it is because we have only one Earth and different people crave different things.
Why do we run out of resources and many species become extinct? Don't ask, it is because we have globalized a system that is based on supply and demand notwithstanding the fact that Earth has never multiplied itself to compensate for humans' demands [read: stupidity] and humans most likely will never leave Earth.
Can a person understand this? We can look at a person's expression and — if that person isn't a good liar — know the answer to this question even before we ask that person. An interesting question neuroscientists are trying to solve: If we scan the person's brain, will we be able to know the answer to this question before we ask the person?
Try any questions. If you give yourself time to think, you will come to the same conclusion: if the universe lets us know any information about itself and this information is of any significance, we don't need to ask any questions because our questions have been answered before we even ask them.
And now comes our next question: Why did I write this article?
I wrote this article because it had been my observation that if the governments wanted to change the world, they were almost powerless to change how things had become: the governments failed because of us. One thing we could do is we could invite all the world's past leaders, current leaders, and aspiring leaders to stop doing what they are doing, gather around, and rethink the answer to this question: Are we a successful species? Because it is clear that our knowledge is only about the past and thus the only answer that is accessible to us has already been made accessible to us: we are not that successful.
And finally, our planet could have had a very different history; I have written about this in my paper. We have had many tragedies; and we, with all our stories and successes, are the result of these tragedies. Should we do it again? Should we war again? Should we destroy everything that has been given to us including the memory of those who have shaped our history as if they mean nothing? Ignorance is never bliss because even a plant knows a thing or two. Ignorance is that which says that all we've been through, our history, the universe and our place in it doesn't matter.
This is not about right or wrong. This is not at all about what one should do and what one shouldn't do. We can, of course, find our own answers to our questions and feel satisfied with the answers, but give this a thought: if one's past is of any meaning to one, enlightenment seems certain, and despite one's defined successes and failures as a species, eventually it is not what one does that defines one so much as what one knows.
So, do we still have questions about life? Or have there been many things in life about which we have been able to say "I think I've known plenty"?
