Multilevel Emergence

FIS Friends--

(I apologize for the length of this message.)

I BASIC INTRODUCTION

The discussion thus far seems obsessed with what utensils are at the
table and less with of what the meal consists.

FIS is inventing a science, and to my mind the orderly way to do so
is to understand the use to which the science will be put. (You don't
have to be an idealist about the world to believe that much of
science is constructed.) I suggest that one promising use is to look
at evolution, or emergent behavior if you wish. To be useful, the new
science would more cleanly deal with mechanics than does what we have
now. And it would do more than describe; it would predict.

I have suggested elsewhere a specific dynamic, the examination of
which might be fruitful. That dynamic goes beyond the impetus of some
basic quality to organize, create structure and something persisting
as the system's memory. It goes to the phenomenon I imperfectly call
multilayer or multilevel systems. In Conrad's view, these are cells,
brains, niches, and economy. (Thanks to Pedro, 16 May, for competent
moderation in reintroducing the problem.) Other divisions of layers
will be posited by others (elementary particles, molecules, cells,
..); I have different ones in my artificial systems. The units are
not important, what is important are boundaries between these
systems-as-layers.

The activity of cells produces two types of organization: a simple
one for instance consisting of the society of cells, and a more
complex one which defines the world of the higher level, say brains.
The nature of this structure is a more interesting problem than that
of the simple society, and one which I strongly believe will be the
catalyst for developing a new science. The central problem is that
"information" -centric activity in the lower level creates all the
abstractions of the higher level: the largely new ontology and its
physics. This "vertical" information flow and projected deep creation
of new layers of the world is completely inscrutable using
conventional constructs.

I suggest that a new layer results when some complexity threshold is
reached within a layer (a quantum entropy); also that there are some
predictable formal dynamics that can predict the nature of the new
ontology based on the nature of "information" activity within the
layer. Probably that any observer has their own "thirdness" but
locked within a single layer as a behavior of the that society (; and
that examination of the thirdness of observation or signs within a
layer is an interesting hobby but probably not one which promises new
insights).

II. A PROPOSAL ON MECHANICS

Jim Cogswell (8 Apr) introduced the work of Michael Leyton into the
discussion. That same day I posted some caveats for applying his
notions to the FIS agenda, which is quite different than his. But I
think many of his notions do provide some leverage. Our work here
developed a similar approach in parallel.

We believe that a basic problem in information studies is that the
mechanics of first order logic is broken, meaning inadequate for
these types of problems. Information concerning "situation" (which
most will understand as "systems context") needs to be explicitly
represented, each fact then being "situated." This is satisfied by
using the robust situation logic developed in the 80's by Barwise and
since greatly elaborated. Furthermore, the notion of situation STATE
must be handled formally: a formal science of monads has developed in
the computing community, including the new notion of multilevel
monads.

With this situation/monad awareness, one can naturally see the
systems and subsystems of information transfers as groups. (Included
in the groups are the structure of the abstractions involved, using
related formalisms.) The dynamics of those groups can be seen in
terms of symmetry operations (which in a reflexive manner can be
characterized as groups...). It appears that at a certain level of
complexity, groups can define operators that transform themselves
(fibre bundles of abstract primitives) into a new "layer" of
abstractions and information transfer behaviors. The key points here
mirror Leyton's work.

A restatement without the mathematical jargon: there seems to be a
way to formally characterize/model information behavior within a
system so that the model explains and predicts the system's
behavior. That description contains not only the physics of the
system, but its metaphysics (its ontology and the methods of
abstraction allowed). So far, nothing unique. But because the mere
activity of the system is seen as the initiator of the abstraction
mechanism, the system has the wherewithal to transform itself into a
related "child" ("parent?") at a higher level. The existence of the
higher level depends on the lower, but has some distinctly different
behavior. If this is true, and consistent within useful bounds, and
indeed predicts behavior of interest, we may have some of the
mechanics for the new FIS science.

Note that the mechanics are based on symmetry operators. This is not
the symmetry described by Darvas (8 Apr) which is morphology-centric,
but the broader use of the term which would encapsulate time. But
that's beyond my pay grade, as we used to say at my lab.

III. SOME TOUCHSTONES WITH PRIOR COMMENTS

I'm extremely optimistic about FIS developing not just a consensus,
but one that is a breakthrough. I am not sufficiently talented to
weave such a synthesis, but can relate a few onlist comments to the
notion sketched above:

Koichiro's note on the "internalist" view of John C. (6 May): I think
this is a matter of preference, not truth. I prefer his "negotiation"
model because it provides a methodology for the contextualization
noted above. Similarly with "potential" info and mapping to abstract
constructs. Concerning this, graphs and categories are more apt than
numbers in my estimation.

Pedro objects to John's "incardinating" info in physics and suggests
three layers (cells, brains, firms) as an archetypical countercase.
Firms (or as I would say, "enterprises") are an extremely rich
domain: rich in terms of interesting problems but also -- take note
-- in terms of sponsorship for the new science. I understand John's
view in my own way as the "situating" of physically generated
information in physics; other layers (organic and non) are similarly
situated. Most folks here seem to say something similar, even Edwina
but with the possible exception of Gottfried. (Shu-Kun's brief
comment on this hit home with me!)

And Gottfried's contextualization in signs is universally accepted it
seems, with the only exception being extension to layers where
conventional observers do not exist. S�ren's 5 levels (and
accompanying work) addresses this rather well enough I think. Edwina
objects to an enforced pansemiotician, and implicitly challenges us
to devise a less charged framework paradigm. I take that as an FIS
work item.

Despite consequent religious differences about certain rootings,
nearly everyone in their own way shares the same general
discrimination of information, communication and structure (memory),
with apparently minor syntactical nits. Most of these are related to
the amusingly slippery game of "consciousness," which we would do
well to not play.

S�ren reports (21 May) on the Fuschl consensus. That could serve as a
starting point for FIS futures. For my tastes, it is not strong
enough. A good consensus separates out the tentatively settled from
the agreed open issues. The nature of the "metaheterarchy" and
"filtering" are manifestly open grand challenges but noted as
settled. Also, explanatory mechanics (autopoiesis) are confusingly
mixed with problem descriptions. The levels noted here are more bound
to the framework (physical, informational and semiotic causality)
rather than the behavior (cells, brains, firms for instance) as
Edwina notes (22 May). In that same message, she opens an interesting
issue concerning self organized systems versus complex adaptive
systems. I think this dissonance needs to be settled forthwith. I
vote for both: the first as closed systems seen locally; the second
for multilayer systems, the "openness" indicating the potential to
project new information spaces.

There has been much traffic on signs. I find this both intriguing and
frustrating. Signs are an artifact of logic, and as noted above we
need a new logic -- in part to escape such ineffable difficulties.

IV. AN APPRECIATION

Although my schedule forbids the kind of participation I would like,
I consider this an extremely valuable group. Very courteous
collaborative development of a new intellectualism. With a little bit
of focus toward synthesizing some compromise terms, we can get down
down to the real work, which could be significant.

Our guidelines should be as undogmatic as possible. I think we must
take it as empirical proof that no workable framework exists
(Bertalanffy fundamentalism notwithstanding) so we need to do some
engineering of the metaphysic. What concepts are leverageable and
frangible are the issues and they need to be addressed in terms of
what the new science adds.

Best, Ted
Received on Fri May 24 21:09:03 2002