Emergence and epiphenomena (3)

Rob Freeman lists at chaoticlanguage.com
Fri Mar 3 07:45:44 UTC 2006


On Friday 03 March 2006 17:14, Salinas17 at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 3/2/06 5:18:53 AM, lists at chaoticlanguage.com writes:
> << What is the single "rule of movement" for these gliders, Steve? >>
>
> To create a south-east bound glider, starting at 0 on the grid (away from a
> border), simply fill in Row 1 Col1, Row2 Col2&3, Row3 Col 1&2.  By the GOL
> rules of adjacency, the 2d generation MUST be Row 1Col2, Row2 Col3, Row3
> Col 2,3&4, the 3rd gen MUST be Row 1Col3, Row2 Col 1&3, Row 3 Col 2&3, and
> the fourth gen MUST go back to the original pattern except all live cells
> are now one column over.  And EVERY 4th generation the original pattern
> repeats itself over and over again "moving" a column in those exact same
> amt of turns into infinity.

That's the _single_ rule then is it?

Seriously Steve, don't you see what you have done here is describe something 
like a corpus, citing the GOL rules which generate it, the _real_ rules, as 
you go.

You might as well claim to describe the grammar of English by dictating a 
text.

> <<Isn't it a contradiction to say the behavior of the system is governed by
> rules, but you have "no idea" what causes the behavior of the system?>>
>
> ... it simply means we cannot perceive the process...

You cite what you claim is a rule, and then say we cannot perceive it, and say 
this is not contradictory?

I don't know what point you are trying to make. You don't seem to like my 
characterization of "direct causes" and "indirect causes" so much is clear. 
Other than that, what is your point?

If you want to characterize what is different about emergent systems as "we 
cannot perceive the process" then let's put it that way. The up-shot is the 
same. If grammar is emergent then we need to describe grammar, which we can 
perceive, in terms of processes which we cannot perceive (like rules for 
making generalizations over corpora.)

And again, if the underlying system is such that "we cannot perceive the 
process", so long as we go on trying to formalize it in terms of what we can 
perceive (grammar itself), we will not succeed. That is my point. That is 
what "emergent grammar" is trying to say.

Is anyone still failing to see this?

-Rob



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