Difference between revisions of "Emergent Behavior"

Revision as of 20:57, 15 November 2023

Full Title or Meme

Emergent Behavior refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Context

• Emergent Behavior refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. It is also the most striking feature of Self-organization.
• Emergent properties are those that are not present in the individual components of a system but arise from their interactions^[1]
• Emergence lives in the place between dependance and autonomy, between predictable and random. It tries to explicate the dualism of the world, which extends even to the dualism of Quantum Mechanics where the fundamental parts are neither waves that travel through space or particles that are observed as events, but rather show the behaviors of both.
• Historically we can track the idea that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts to Plato^[2] but the first use of the term emergent is in George Lewes^[3]

  Although each effect is the resultant of its components, we cannot always trace the steps of the process, so as to see in the product the mode of operation of each factor. In the latter case, we propose to call the effect an emergent. It arises out of the combined agencies, but in a form which does not display the agents in action … Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the cooperant 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 cooperation of things of unlike kinds … The emergent is unlike its components in so far as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.

Problem

• Many parts of our world, perhaps even the entire universe, seem to be too complex given the very simple rules that the elemental parts' behavior could not possibly predict.
• One does not need to understand Quantum Mechanics to describe a tornado or attempt to predict its path.
• Identity Models are constructed to describe complex Ecosystems that have component parts that are constantly changing, yet the identifier of the living organisms in an Ecosystem can have Identifiers that work well for years or even eons.
• Everything is in flux. Hericlitus staid: "You cannot step twice into the same river, for it is not the same river and you are not the same person."^[4] Or by another translation: ""^[5]

Solution

• For biological ecosystems an Emergent Behavior arises from evolution. Once an organism is born, it will have some genetically determined behaviors at birth. After birth it will learn new behaviors to match the environment where it lives.
• For Artificial Intelligence or other complex computer systems, an Emergent Behavior is one that was not expected during the programing of the system.

References

1. ↑ Timothy O’Connor, Emergent Properties Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2020) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
2. ↑ Verity Harte Plato on Parts and Wholes Oxford UP (2002) https://philosophy.yale.edu/publications/plato-parts-and-wholes
3. ↑ George Henry Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind. First Series: The Foundations of a Creed Vol. 2. Boston: Osgood. (1875) section 65 and 66 Results and Emergents https://www.google.com/books/edition/Problems_of_Life_and_Mind_The_principles/0J8RAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
4. ↑ Heraclitus, (500 BC) https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-explain-in-a-very-simple-way-the-saying-No-man-ever-steps-into-the-same-river-twice
5. ↑ Adam Nicolson, How to Be