Related papers: Detection and emergence
This is one of two papers about emergence, reduction and supervenience. It expounds these notions and analyses the general relations between them. The companion paper analyses the situation in physics, especially limiting relations between…
This is a companion to another paper. Together they rebut two widespread philosophical doctrines about emergence. The first, and main, doctrine is that emergence is incompatible with reduction. The second is that emergence is supervenience;…
"Emergence", the phenomenon where a complex system displays properties, behaviours, or dynamics not trivially reducible to its constituent elements, is one of the defining properties of complex systems. Recently, there has been a concerted…
Surveillance is a process that observes behaviour, recognises properties and identifies individuals. It has become a commonplace phenomenon in our everyday life. Many surveillance practices depend on the use of advanced technologies to…
Emergence is a profound subject that straddles many scientific disciplines, including the formation of galaxies and how consciousness arises from the collective activity of neurons. Despite the broad interest that exists on this concept,…
Emergence (macro-level effects from micro-level causes) is at the heart of the conflict between reductionism and functionalism. How can there be autonomous higher level laws of nature (the functionalist claim) if everything can be reduced…
The broad concept of emergence is instrumental in various of the most challenging open scientific questions -- yet, few quantitative theories of what constitutes emergent phenomena have been proposed. This article introduces a formal theory…
When we look at the world around us, we see complex physical systems and emergent phenomena. Emergence occurs when a system is observed to have properties that its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviors emerge only…
It is well-known that biological phenomena are emergent. Emergent phenomena are quite interesting and amazing. However, they are difficult to be understood. Due to this difficulty, we propose a theory to describe emergence based on a…
We suggest a quantitative and objective notion of emergence. Our proposal uses algorithmic information theory as a basis for an objective framework in which a bit string encodes observational data. A plurality of drops in the Kolmogorov…
A number of elements towards a classification of the quality of emergence in emergent collective systems are provided. By using those elements, several classes of emergent systems are exemplified, ranging from simple aggregations of simple…
The common internal structure and algorithmic organization of object detection, detection-based tracking, and event recognition facilitates a general approach to integrating these three components. This supports multidirectional information…
Human and artificial organizations may be described as networks of interacting parts. Those parts exchange data and control information and, as a result of these interactions, organizations produce emergent behaviors and purposes -- traits…
Several different types of statistical interaction are defined and distinguished, primarily on the basis of the nature of the factors defining the interaction. Illustrative examples, mostly epidemiological, are given. The emphasis is…
In another paper (Butterfield 2011), one of us argued that emergence and reduction are compatible, and presented four examples illustrating both. The main purpose of this paper is to develop this position for the example of phase…
In these notes we review emergent phenomena in complex systems, emphasizing ways to identify potential underlying universal mechanisms that generates complexity. The discussion is centered around the emergence of collective behavior in…
This article discusses the relationship between emergence and reductionism from the perspective of a condensed matter physicist. Reductionism and emergence play an intertwined role in the everyday life of the physicist, yet we rarely stop…
A sketch of three senses of emergence and a suggestive view on the emergence of time and the direction of time is presented. After trying to identify which issues philosophers interested in emergent phenomena in physics view as important I…
The problem of emergence in physical theories makes necessary to build a general theory of the relationships between the observed system and the observing system. It can be shown that there exists a correspondence between classical systems…
Concepts used in the scientific study of complex systems have become so widespread that their use and abuse has led to ambiguity and confusion in their meaning. In this paper we use information theory to provide abstract and concise…