Computational Modeling
Fall 2008

For today, you should:

1) work on Chapter 8, aim to finish today

2) read about emergence

3) take a swappy book, or the book you bought, on the plane


Today:

1) work on Chapter 8

2) discussion of emergence


For next time you should:

1) read Chapter 9 (my suggestions next time)

2) prepare for a quiz on Chapter 8


Emergence
---------

From the Wikipedia page on Emergence,
Corning's refinement of Golding's definition:

"The common characteristics are: (1) radical novelty (features not
previously observed in systems); (2) coherence or correlation (meaning
integrated wholes that maintain themselves over some period of time);
(3) A global or macro "level" (i.e. there is some property of
"wholeness"); (4) it is the product of a dynamical process (it
evolves); and (5) it is "ostensive" - it can be perceived. For good
measure, Goldstein throws in supervenience -- downward causation."


Some terms that tend to get thrown around in definitions of emergence:

Surprise, novelty, causation, (un)predictability, intent,
self-organization, evolution (increasing order), new category.


For help thinking about causation across levels, I recommend
Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop".