The chapter on emergence was an interesting chapter to me. I found it kind of hard to follow everything that was being discussed surrounding the whole idea of emergence and artificial life but I will try to give it a go. The thing that struck me most in the chapter on emergence was the reference to the Langton quote that emergence “refers to the complex high-level consequences of low-level rule based interactions.” This quote to me is a great description of computers and other high tech devices. When I think of computers and other such devices I think of the different pieces that come together to create the device. Each of the key components for a technology device is a low-level rule based “particle” and when they are all combined they become a complex high-level “particle” such as a computer or a cell phone. Although the parts that make up phones are complex when they come together they become an even more complex device that fits the definition. I know that I have changed it a little bit from interactions and consequences to “particles” as I chose to use but I still think it is the same thing. The parts are interactions and when they come together they become high-level consequences such as a computer.
I also found this quote to be interesting-“Natural life emerges out of the organized actions of a great number of nonliving molecules.” I think that if in this class we are going to think of computers as becoming or being living things than this quote would play a large part in it. I don’t think we can classify a computer as natural life but if we are going to say it is living then the rest of the quote becomes useful. When a computer is functional it is the “organized actions of a great number of nonliving molecules.” Think about a computer or phone or any high tech device and think about all the tiny parts that are vital to the device if it is going to work properly. There are a bunch of nonliving molecules inside any technological device and when they come together in “organized actions” they create something that some people claim are living things.
1 comment:
Exactly, and thinking about emergence as the "high level consequence" is great, here we find the complexity. The big problem is that while putting together the tiny particles, we can guess at some possible uses or outcomes, but there will always be more possibilities in use then we can imagine.
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