From: "Jan Maslow" (jmaslow@jps.net)
To: scienceandspirit@sriaurobindocenter-la.com
Subject: Re: musing on a structural paradox (rod's response II)
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 07:06:13 -0400
Hi Folks:

I
caught the word "emergence" in one of the recent posts. Here's a letter
from the "Journal of Consciousness Studies" egroup which, I think,
shows how far the predominantly objectivist viewpoint is from an
understanding of consciousness - and this letter is from someone who is
trying to get beyond objectivism.

(PS: I've written a few times
to a brilliant cognitive psychologist, Bill Adams, who did post doc
work in phenomenology and the study of perception with James Gibson at
Cornell; Bill said recently that "Information" and "Emergence" are two
of the great "weasel" words of modern science - as Tommy Mandel as
written about "complexity", nobody in contemporary science is able to
agree what information or emergence mean (same thing with
"consciousness"), so people are able to use these words to mean just
about anything. I've seen some writers (in science journals, not just
in egroups) use emergence to defend materialism and others who use
emergence to refute materialism. Interesting, no?)

***************************

Tommy Mandel wrote:

"Human consciousness of the awareness kind, may be an emergent property of the whole brain AND that which it is being aware of."

"That
is to say that any substance may very well be in a relationship with
some other substance and the two together may/will lead to new
properties not found in the parts".

————————-
Monserrat responded:

Thom,

I
would say that the interaction is not just, or only, inside brain, but
between the organism and objects. That is to say that human
consciousness - as emergent property - is a process and a product of
the interaction between the brain-body and objects, in a dynamical
social environment.

————————-
David Friend said:

I
have followed some of the debate on emergence under this heading, but I
do not see where generalizations on the subject are going to get us. We
can all agree that processes in the brain exhibit emergence. ..We now
have to get down to specific mechanisms of emergence to construct
scenarios for mind.

————————-
John Mccrone said:

The
problem with emergence is that it is still a bottom-up approach. The
parts lock together and produce wholes with new levels, new properties.
Quantity becomes quality. However there is still a sense that the
emergent whole is epiphenomenal - the sum of its causes rather than
more than its causes.

————————-
Don said:

Hi John and friends;

Emergence
is very important to the study of consciousness. So for that reason I
would like to take this opportunity to explicate emergence.

The
emergent property of a relationship is not an "approach" in the sense
that one would adopt it as a theory or another would reject it as a
theory. Just as "velocity" is not an approach, which some could reject
because some objects do not exhibit "velocity" (See comment on
emergentism below)

Emergence is a property of an
integrative/whole/system. While emergence in general is of fundamental
significance, it should not be regarded as the whole ball of wax that
one might reject. Emergence describes a feature of certain interactive
relationships. There may be systems where emergence does not play a
primary role. A mechanical nut/bolt fastener relationship for example.

So
it would be a mistake to assume that emergence is something to be
followed or not followed. Emergence is a fact of life. er, living. What
is most important and necessary and required, here, now, to understand,
is that emergence is ubigitious.

Also significant is that there
are various kinds or types of emergence. So to say that this particular
type has or does not have this or that attribute, and on that basis
reject or accept emergence is not how it is done.

In some cases
our experience of an emergent property of relationship, is also our
experience of the elements as a whole. That is to say our experience of
the whole is our experience of the emergent relationship. The emergent
is the whole. The whole is the emergent.

There is a whole lot more that has been shown us by the old masters.

- Don

***************************

(Definition
from the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics. Edited
by Charles Francois ISBN 3-598-11357-9 Pages 117 - 118)

EMERGENCE

1.
"The spontaneous transformation of a set of components from a less
coherent state, where the space-time correlation between them is
confined to mean free path and mean relaxation collision times, to a
more coherent state exhibiting novel, global, dynamical space-time
behavoir" )T Swenson 1989)

2. "Any process whereby the variety and/or constraint of a system changes. (F. Heylighen)

He
writes "The emergence of systems of (partially) conserved distinctions
cannot be deduced from the properties of the lower-level "microscopic"
distinctions, but may be understood as a process of self-organization,
governed by variation and selective retention."

"… such a
process will necessarily change the identity of the system itself. It
might therefore also be called a system transition. This is a
qualitative change, where a new organization or system appears, and
with properties (potential appearances) that did not exist in the old
system. The more usual quantitative dynamical evolution of a system, on
the other hand, , is merely a transition within the constrained variety
of possible appearances, where neither constraint nor variety undergo
any change."

Francois also has an entry for "EMERGENT SYSTEMS (Properties of the)

A.
WILDEN enumerates the following properties, as characteristics of any
emergent system. "- An increased adaptive range. - And increased
viability.
- An increased vriety (complexity)
- Structural innovations
-
The shaping of modified subsystems (later on) - An enhanced selectivity
- More varied simulations possibilities - Increased opportunities for
changing goals. - An increase in the sensibilities sensitivity to noise"

"The
2nd order negative feedback under the guise of emergence, implies thus
a recodification or renormalization, in the sense of reconstruction."


Francois also includes an entry for "EMERGENTISM"

"The
philosophy that combines an acknowledgement of emergence with the
thesis that emergence is explainable and predictable within bounds."
(M. Bunge 1979)


According to Bunge, this proposal
"supercedes both atomism (though not its allegiance to science) and
holism (though not its insistence on emergence"

Emergence is not
a new subject. But all of the above is using words to describe the
experience. A symbolic expression at the simplest (fundamental)
ontological level would look something like C=L(A,P)

To EXPERIENCE Emergence first hand,

CLAP your hands together.

Or snap your fingers.

Emergence
is also a feature of this gestalt picture. The task is to stare at it.
Notice when the foreground/background illusion shifts from one to the
other.

This picture illustrates on an experiential level the
properties of a system in general and emergence in particular. Note
that both cannot be seen together, it is either one or the other. Also
note the role of the observer.

This, as Bernie Barrs pointed
out, visual consciousness may be a good place to begin to study
consciousness in the hopes of arriving at some generalconclusions that
may be transferred to other areas of our brain/knowledge/consciousness.
We have empirical evidence of the organization of the visual system.
Basically it goes like this:

Light enters the eye through
the lens. The lens diffracts the light (changes the path of the light)
such that it is focused on the rear of the eye. The rear of the eye is
lined with light receptors. These receptors, numbering about 110
millions, are arranged as fields. Each type of field is sensitive to a
particular pattern of light, some might detect vertical lines, others
might detect horizontal line. Some are sensitive to light itself, some
detect light at the outer edges of the field, others detect light at the
centers. There are many different kinds of fields. The output of the
fields are fed to the bipolar cells. When a bipolar cell fires, this
outputs to the ganglion cells. There are about 1.10 million ganglion
cells. They are interconnected by the amacrine and horizontal cells.
The output of the ganglion cells, the axons, leave the eye as a bundle
and becomes the optic nerve. Depth of vision is enabled by a crossover
of a percentage of the axons from the inner area of each eye.


It
is of interest to look at the reduction of information enabling the eye
to make sense out of the infinite forms available. We don't see what is
out there, what we are seeing is what our eye is telling us it sees.
Can this be applied to consciousness in general? Can it be said that
our consciousness is interpreting an infinite reality, and reporting to
us only what it is conscious of? And if that is so, who are we?

- Don