emergent properties and masses - from sci.lang

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

>From another posting on sci.lang, i saw this, which seems highly
relevant to the nature of Lojban masses.

>1: Sandpile emergence: self-organising systems, from - well - sandpiles to
>   crystals, spontaneously form ordered structures of which it is necessary
>   to  take account when describing the system. The model used - as Aaron
>   points out - transcends the model needed to describe the parts; although
>   this 'lower' model may well (and usually does) allow one to explain how
>   the 'higher' order system came to be. Going beyond models, however, the
>   crystal (or sandpile) has properties which effect photons and pinpong balls
>   in ways which the unemerged shambles of sand and atoms does not. It is not
>   a matter of our explaining it, it is what it does that changes what is.
>   Emergence does stuff.
>
> 2: Dynamic emergence: Prigogine turf. I forget the derivation, but a number of
>    equilibrium equations take the form of a second order polynomial, having
>    two roots. Thus such systems are capable of resolving themselves into two
>    equilibria, with appropriate surfaces connecting such poles. Hence
>    Belouzov-Zhabotinski (sp?) waves in chemical systems. Taps drip; reeds
>    oscillate in streams; periodic and quasiperiodic phenomena dissect the
>    natural world and prevent the smooth approach to equilibrium. Attractors
>    attract, chaos spirals; dynamic systems emit complex properties which both
>    require complex models for them to be understood and which change things
>    in complex ways. Prigogine shows how closed, far from equilibrium systems
>    can temporarily and locally reverse Thermodynamics II; life as we know it,
>    Captain.
>
> 3: Information-based emergence: nice Mr Darwin. Differing from the other
>    forms, information-based emergent systems have a storage medium and a
>    transcription system. This is a critical distinction: one can (vaguely)
>    think about a wave of chemical disequilibrium - depletion, saturation -
>    as being 'memory' or 'data', but it is easier to view it in chemical terms.
>    The point is that the choice is one of viewpoint; whereas in information
>    based emergence, no such ambiguity exists. There is storage - genes,
>    habituated neurons, resonant loops - and there is a distinctive and
>    seperate mechanism of transcription; neither work alone, both together have
>    properties which are transcendent of the component parts. The data stored
>    is usually only interpretable in terms of what it does: that is to say, it
>    has a unique role which is "called" in an algorithmic way. It is not a
>    "language". Turing rules, ko.
>
> 4: Syntactical emergence, to coin a phrase. Emergent structures have, as
>    indicated, properties of which they are the unique suppliers. Nothing else
>    has these properties. Two such entities, brought together and allowed to
>    interact, may generate another emergent structure, having its own unique
>    properties. (We can see this in designed things - telescopes and teacups -
>    but here, the Designer gets in the way of the concept.) Focusing on the
>    natural world, therefore, we find that trees - together - make something
>    which trees, separately do not: a forest, an entity with its own
>    properties, structures, niches and opportunities. Trees adapt themselves
>    for the forest environment. Forests are thereby changed; making new niches,
>    new properties. A species of grammar emerges, with chunks that have
>    properties capable of being arranged by chance and adaptation to fal into
>    new patterns of mutual interaction.
>
> 5: Intentional emergence: Brentano's baby. Systems built up from the various
>    flavours of emergence have distinct boundaries. It may be tautological to
>    say that within these, the entities are primarily driven by internal
>    processes and that beyond them, they are responsive to and effective upon
>    exogenous events. What makes it more than tautological in some specific
>    cases is that these systems show signs of recognising this boundary and
>    acting to police it. Where this occurs unambiguously, it is helpful to
>    refer to the entity concerned as intentional, as recognising the other. One
>    can, of course, suggest that a chemotactic bacterium is intentional: it
>    wiggles its little flagellae in order to drive itself up desirable chemical
>    gradients. Close examination of what actually happens in such a system,
>    however, suggests a purely push-button 'informational' emergence: what
>    distinguishes intentional emergence is the processing of abstractions.

A Lojban mass may have emergent properties that are not properties of
the components of the mass.  We use Lojban masses to represent
combinations of components in such a way that the reference
simulataneously recognizes emerging qualities of the mass, while
preserving recognition of the existence of components and their distinct
properties that explain the emerging properties.  I would presume that any
reference to a Lojban mass invokes some aspect of the emergent properties.

I'm not sure whether all five of the above can be represented as Lojban
masses (indeed, I am pretty sure I don't *understand* all 5 of them),
but I am pretty sure that I have used masses to discuss emergent
properties related to 1. and 4.

lojbab