Actualité et enjeux du concept d'émergence en sciences cognitives, ARCo/CREA/ISC, novembre 2010
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Attended activities
Presentation ARCo
- historique 1981
- taille ~130 membre
- but conf, intellectica, review, atelier, ecole ete, ...
Introduction : quelques variétés d'émergences et d'émergentismes en philosophie de l'esprit
par Pierre Steiner (14h15-15h00)
- introduction : enjeu philo et epistemologique de l'E et de l'emergentisme
- differentiation reductible/irreductible
- emergentisme = realite de E
- E = meca ou proprietes E
- E epistemologique != E ontologique
- E epistemologique macro-struct avec impossibilite de prediction base uniquement sur les constituants (causalite descendant / downward causality)
- E ontologique
- mention de [Kim 1998] [Kim 1998] (cf ref)
- inverted correlation between success of reductionnism and emergentism
- E permet d'etre moniste sans etre reductionniste
- E rejection du dualisme
- monisme materialiste, ontologie moniste physicaliste
- conception strategifie de la realit : continuite ontologique, pliralite epistemologique
- schema
- Particules / Atomes / Molecules /Genes / Cellules / Organismes / Consciences / Societes
- cf LayeredModel
- perspcetive historique
- Aristote Metaphysique
- effets et lois homopathes vs effets et lois heteropathes Mill 1843
- prop E vs prop resultantes Lewes 1875
- Alexander 1920
- req
- materialisme
- prop systemique et que
- determination synchronique (?)
- E et conscience phenomemnale en philosophie esprit
- 3 strategie pr definir et invoquer E
- proprietes E comme proprietes systematique non-agregatives
- pas simplement addition des parties du systeme
- propriete emergentes sont des props systemetique non aggregative William Wimsatt (2000)
- importance des interactions les composants individuels
- l'addiditive qui semble etre la regle en physique ne ne l'est plus pour les autres niveaux, importance des interactions
- "Discussions of emergent properties in nonlinear dynamics, connectionist modeling, chaos, artificial life, and elsewhere give no support for traditional antireductionsm or woolly-headed antiscientism." Wimsatt 1997
- comportement non deductible de loins qui regissent le comportement des parties, les lois presentes au nieau systematique ne sont pas ddutibles des lois du micro-niveau, ce sont des lois fondamentales
- B McLaughin 1997
- ehec de la tentative de reductionnisme
- caractere emergent de la conscience phenomenale
- Searle/Kim/Varela&Thomson
- la causalite descendante est formelle et topologique, elle est structurante, Thompson 2007
- schema de causalite descendante avec triangle P->P1 && P -> P1 && M~> P1 (a a Kim 2006)
- ouverture : caractere emergent de la conscience et immersion env. de la cognition
- oriente par l'activite consciente de l'organisme
- couplage organisme/environment ? (a la Brooks)
- Q&A
- jamais "enaction" d'evoque
- combinatoire
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Émergence, Neurosciences et Conscience
par Catherine Tallon-Baudry (15h00-15h45)
- definition of E
- The modular model of the visual system and its limits
- functional model of the visual system
- functions or boids or units
- structured, layered, ...
- Criterion for the existence of a functional area (~module)
- cytoarchitectony
- retinotopic mapping
- feature selectivity
- Existence of feature- and domain- processing modules
- Specific modules or distributed coding?
- A hierarchical, serial modular model?
- Cardinal cell (but with combinatorial explosion problem)
- Encoding new objects
- mention of pruning (cf Without Miracles)
- require a wealth of available neurons and their connectivity
- Superposition catastrophe
- cf Varela's thesis
- Emergence & Perceptual Binding
- the binding problem and superposition catastrophe
- e.g. girafe behind a green tree
- binding problem
- illusory conjunctions
- gamma oscillatory synchrony could solve it
- gamma oscillation in humans and coherent percept
- Controversy
- oscillations does not exist
- when they are seen it is an artefact
- they exist but do not have a functional role (epiphenomenon)
- what is at stake
- neural code, population code
- brain as an orchestra
- properties of functional modules
- interactions between functional modules
- mechanisms of neural cooperativity? is a conductor needed?
- Emergence & Conscousiness
- conciousness is not localized
- no focal lesion can disrupt consciousness
- localization leads to conceptual problems
- need for a model of interactions in a highly interconnected system that would create a whole with emerging properties
- explanatory gap
- lack of an explanation of mental life in physical/biological terms
- how can phenomenal human experience be explained solely in bio/phys terms?
- dualism
- "trick" of emerging properties
- attempt at reductionism unsuccessful (so far)
- no def. of what conscious experience is; field relying on agreement and operational def
- E as alt to reductionism
- quoting Searle "Where appearance is concerned we can't make the appearance-reality..."
- (some) Conclusions
- E in neuroscience
- brain as a complex, highly interconnected system
- E could be particularly useful when studying consciousnes
- How to direct E and E properties in exp data?
- oscillations
- used for a variety of cognitive functions
- Q&A
- probleme de perspective
- interfaces entre systemes avec une experience subjective mais "reel" pour la personne qui percoit la representation et un substrat avec un comportement objectif
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Commentaire
par Xabier Barandiaran (15h45-15h55)
- need for rigorous formalization, maybe from statistical mechanics
- E of what?
- visual perception, representations, intentions, intelligence, consciousness, emotion, ...
- Domains of E and integration
- sensorimotors "pyramid" / cortico-cortical interactions /cortico-subcortical interactions (body) / sensorimotors interactions (environment)
- The need of building blocks for theoretical structuring
- conceptual power of reduction
- building blocks of emergent theory of brain-body-behavior dynamics?
- Start minimal
- why not C. elegans instead of humain brain dynamics?
- ...and robotics?
- e.g. with phototaxis with 5 oscillators
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Emergent Computation in Biochemical Networks: what material representations tell us about autonomy
par Luis Rocha (16h15-17h00)
- collective dynamics (eigeinbehavior and symbols)
- level 1 Dynamics
- level 2 attractors
- level 3 emergent classification
- eventually existence of "epistemic cut"
- evolution (in changing environment) requires
- selection (implicit: rate of reproduction) requires
- alternative dynamic configurations (to produce different behaviors) requires
- control of initial conditions (inheritable memory)
- Robot example (cf http://www.johuco.com/muram/muram.html )
- modules with well defined rules
- typical path, playing "chicken"
- biological interpretation of attractor behavior
- "credit assignment problem"
- loci of information
- paradoxically for life in the most inert object : DNA
- what matters is the information it encodes, not what it does
- comparison with computers and usage of silicon
- how do you use a system to transmit information from generation to generation
- models of evolution as a series of re-entrant networks
- studying emergence in complex systems
- explanation of CA
- mention of Turing Reaction–diffusion system (cf Fisher-KPP seen recently)
- quorum sensing or what decision to take? (Density Classification)
- local neighborhood (LNC)
- local strategy
- random (fails)
- majority rule (fails)
- evolutionary algorithm solving (inc. work at SFI)
- "bind" spreading of local information (P=53%-60%)
- integration and transmission of information across population
- creation of an algebra of Particle Interactions (cf SFI in the 90s) GA to evolve rules for DT (1994), Crutchfield and Mitchell & al.
- Rocha and Hordijk 2005
- semiotic closure (or "semiopoieis")
- dynamically incoherent memory
- syntax for manipulation, comm, and variation
- construction code
- semantics as a material affair, not a abstract surrogate relationship between internal and external element
- self-organization and selection
- dynamic component self-organize
- representations are selected : pragmatics
- schema redescription of look-up table, solution to redundancy
- wildcard symbol
- position free-symbol (interchangeable)
- applying to existing DCT solutions and compact them
- is it equivalent to delegating information to the interpreter?
- power of "boxing"
- "conceptual" space
- in schemata redescriptions of automata
- rules in schemata vicinity
- simpler to understand than particle mechanics in some cases
- cf Maques-Pita & Rocha 2010
- "looking at emergence you need to look at both domains at the same time"
- automata networks
- used in biology, finding canalization (canalization as form of redundancy thus compressible)
- dynamics canalization map
- unfolding dynamics with partial information
- uncovering (pathway) modules
Publications in Artificial Life, Unconventional Computing, ...
- mention of
- RNA editing, DNA recoding and the evolution of human cognition. John S. Mattick and Mark F. Mehler
- Andy Clark and extended cognition and the reliance on symbols external to the brain
- Varela
- Q&A
- CA by Wolfram as universal Turing machines
- yet any existence of non-reductionist computing system? not easily reducible?
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Remarques critiques conclusives
par René Doursat (17h00-17h10)
- e.g. Natural science in the XIXth century
- macrolevel: laws of genetics < gap > microlevel: atoms
- mesolevel: molecular biology -> multiscale complex systems
- equivalent to cognitive science in the XXth century?
- macrolevel: symbols < gap > microlevel: neurons
- mesolevel: molecular cognition
- e.g. EEGs, chaotic attractor, bluecolumn, morphodynamic, polychronous groups, ...
- mesocognition
- tissue physiology = pattern creation -> brain patterns?
- ponds
- litteral informational paradigm
- bias of feed-forward view (engineering fantasy)
- rather emergent dynamical paradigm
- recurrent, perturbation, fine-grain scale
- nothing without the light of evolution thus development thus complex systems
- self-organized architecture
- swarm chemistry
- embryomorphic engineering
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Institutions dedicated to complex systems
Ordered by date of discovery, from the oldest to the most recent.
Moved to ComplexSystems#Institutions.
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Own position
- Defining emergence as a phenomenon that is "not in the rules" might lead to a misconception:
- the phenomenon is entirely in the rules and its environment, even if it appears out of interactions between multiple entities, the complex and unexpected result is only a proof of the incomplete understanding of those rules by an external interpreter that makes it appear as if is was not explicit in the rules.
Added to Heuristics#Emergence.
Other reviews
To do
- improve Template
- Trois essays sur l'emergence by Jaegwon Kim and translated by Mathieu Mulcey, Ithaque 2006
- WithoutNotesNovember10#GazzanigaEmergence
- LayeredModel
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/
- cf earlier talk at FING regarding anatomical simulation (Paris Descartes?)
- TurtlesTermitesAndTrafficJams
- is fashion and its symbols (shapes and color) a social and thus power diffusion system?
- review the "no intrensic meaning" (own hermeneutic problem) coupling discussed with Paola as it seems more and more solely structured correlations matters (cf conv. ~Nov 10 2AM 2010)
- http://xabierbarandiaran.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/philogeny-of-the-notion-of-habit/
- automation of this principle?
- mention Nathalie Gontier
- convert
E to epistemology
- topology of a space of solutions?
- how to define the neighborhood of a solution space to search it more efficiently?
- one does not change the paradigm of designing a solution but rather the referrential itself, as in shifting from an euclidian geometry to a non-euclidian geometry
- check The Biocomplexity Institute, Indiana University
- integrate
- Complexity through map overview on Wikipedia
- ended with chat with Xabier Barandiaran on his blog post then with him and Luis Rocha on information waves across social networks and early signals
- see also Cookbook.News
- check Reduction, Explanation, and the Thermodynamic Limit at Boston University Center for Philosophy and History of Science, March 2011
- L'émergence by Patrick Juignet, Philosciences.com 2010
based on those talks + CRI talks + view on entrepreneurs as diffuser in Mardis Inno + Economie Entrepreunarial des Connaissances motivates me to focus on what I consider fundamental, embbed it somehow in a system and share it
Fabien Benetou's PIM
