Again - for the nth time - the how is explained semiotically,

Wholes carry the memory or information. Life and mind have coding machinery - words, neurons and genes, principally - that are "physical stuff", and yet not physical in the ordinary way. Information - states of constraint - can be represented symbolically. That is, in a way that is not subject to the usual dictates of entropification but instead which can swim in the opposite direction, upstream or negentropically.

So it is simple to see "the how" of biological, neurological and cultural complexity. There is more going on than just material dynamics. There is also the very different thing of symbolic regulation.

The tricky new thing is pan-semiosis - extending this metaphysics to existence in general. But it is hardly a secret that physics is undergoing its information theoretic revolution.

I mean what do you think an event horizon actually is? Is it matter? Is it information? Or is it really about a habitual relation between these two disjunct aspects of reality?

So it is simple to see "the how" of biological, neurological and cultural complexity. There is more going on than just material dynamics. There is also the very different thing of symbolic regulation. — apokrisis

Apparently it's not as simple as you think, as there are still people who don't quite understand what you're talking about. Can you give an example as to why semiosis is necessary, and why material composition is not adequate? The only way information can be represented are by parts, no?

The tricky new thing is pan-semiosis - extending this metaphysics to existence in general. But it is hardly a secret that physics is undergoing its information theoretic revolution. — apokrisis

Can you give a specific example(s) of where this is happening instead of just asserting that it's public knowledge?

I mean what do you think an event horizon actually is? Is it matter? Is it information? Or is it really about a habitual relation between these two disjunct aspects of reality? — apokrisis

I have no idea, but "information" is meaningless without any form of predication.

The only way information can be represented are by parts, no? — darthbarracuda

http://www.academia.edu/863859/How_does_a_molecule_become_a_message

Thanks fam, I'll get back to you.

In that article, I see "switches" spoken of, which are just parts. There is also the necessity for a "primeval ecosystem language", which the author discusses. Where is this background environment of "language" supposed to have come from, God?

In that article, I see "switches" spoken of, which are just parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what shapes a switch? Is binary logic "real" in your book? (I say yes - as real as any physical circuitry it engenders.)

Where is this background environment of "language" supposed to have come from, God? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, not God. That would be stupid.

No, not God. That would be stupid. — apokrisis

And here I thought you were sympathetic to teleology ... ;)

Did Tarski get a mention here?

So what shapes a switch? Is binary logic "real" in your book? (I say yes - as real as any physical circuitry it engenders.) — apokrisis

But the question is where does the binary logic derive from. In the article the author is look for origins of life. He implies that it is somewhat mistaken to look simply at the emergence of switching systems, because switches are useless unless they come to exist in an environment of a language. So he proposes what he calls a primeval ecosystem. The issue is, where does this primeval ecosystem come from, within which the switching systems can emerge,

Take 5 extremely good basket ball players

Individually they can't do much.

However...with good co-ordination the 5 together can play basket ball i.e. the whole IS greater than its parts.

without co-ordination the 5 would make a poorly performing team i.e. the whole is less than its parts

without co-ordination the 5 would make a poorly performing team i.e. the whole is less than its parts — TheMadFool

First, I just want to remind that co-ordination is not an external factor, but the property of each individual player, so the quality of the team, as a whole, is fully reducible to the properties of individual players.

Second, by continue using the 'whole is more/less/equal to sum of its parts' as characterization of whole/parts relationship we are substituting the analysis of this relationship with misconstrued 'pop-cultural formula' that is using mathematical like notations 'sum/more/less/equal', etc. This gives an impression that this 'formula' is based on the solid ground of the most trusted science - mathematics .

In mathematics, the sum - is about the total amount of things, and not about their relationship. Therefore comparing the total amount of things with the whole , which is about relationships, is a nonsense.

Therefore we should better stop using this 'formula' as a scientific argument if we want ever understand the part/whole relationship, including complex system.

This iconic 'formula' is often used to justify Emergence. There is an understandable temptation to invoke emergence for the phenomena that seem impossible to explain in terms of their underlying mechanisms. However, after almost a century of development, emergentism has not demonstrated that it is a viable alternative to reductionism either. It is actually made things even worse by contaminating a scientific discussion with incomprehensive scientifically sound jargon.

I was talking about self-organisation and not merely emergence. And I gave evidence. I said parts "emerge" via holistic constraint in hierarchically organised systems. — apokrisis

You are explaining one puzzle (emergence) using another puzzle (self-organization)

The spontaneous self organization, including hierarchically organized systems, is a puzzle that is waiting for an explanation. We often think about self-organization in terms of 'spontaneous', free-energy reduction driven processes. It is important to keep in mind that the term ‘spontaneous’ doesn’t explain the complex molecular behavior and instead just conceals a gap between our understanding of physical forces acting in a linear manner, and the complex mechanism of molecular self-assembly. It is why a 'spontaneous' self-assembly is often described in the metaphysical terms of a so called goal directed processes.

So it is not just emergence in the usual sense of new global properties popping out of collective behavior. Instead it is the argument that global forms and purposes act downwards to limit material possibility in fruitful fashion. The whole simplifies messy reality to shape the very parts that compose it. — apokrisis

I know what you mean. However, I think that this downward causation is still reducible to the properties of parts. I may try to demonstrate this on any example you will choose.

The whole (i.e., particular arrangement) is never greater than the sum (i.e., listing) of the parts unless an observer decides it to be the case. In fact, the listing (or sum) of the parts is just another particular arrangement (or whole). Different arrangements may have different properties, but deciding that one arrangement is greater than another is simply a judgment we choose to make at the moment.

So maybe we should say, "I believe that this arrangement of parts conveys more information than some other arrangement."

Or perhaps, "The meaning assigned by an observer to this particular arrangement of parts may be greater than the meaning assigned to the parts themselves."

Or even, "This particular arrangement of parts has different properties (which I value more) than some other arrangement of the parts."

The value assigned to a particular arrangement (i.e., what the term greater seems to imply) depends on the interpretation of the observer. To one who speaks only English, a particular arrangement of brush strokes may appear random. But to a speaker of Chinese, those brush strokes may signify a word. Thus to the Chinese speaker, the whole (the arrangement of the brush strokes) may be greater (carry more information) than the parts (the brush strokes themselves). But to the English speaker ...?

Saying "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" has poetic value, but is not technically correct.

I may try to demonstrate this on any example you will choose. — miosim

Great. Start with consciousness.

Thus to the Chinese speaker, the whole (the arrangement of the brush strokes) may be greater (carry more information) than the parts (the brush strokes themselves). But to the English speaker ...?

Saying "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" has poetic value, but is not technically correct. — Real Gone Cat

But your own argument just showed that the whole has meaning, the parts are meaningless. So the whole has something more (unless you can show how meaning arises purely by the summation of brushstrokes such that an English speaker can understand Chinese by that method).

The issue is, where does this primeval ecosystem come from, within which the switching systems can emerge, — Metaphysician Undercover

Hate to say it, but Pattee is just talking about the necessity of vague beginnings. Where you have the "mystery" of a dichotomy - in this case, the abiogenetic chicken and egg question of which came first, genetic codes or metabolic processes - then the riddle has to be solved using a logic of vagueness.

So the argument is that the primeval "ecosystem language" (and note Pattee is talking specifically about the code half of the dichotomy here) would have condensed out of vaguer, analog, conditions in the same way that the formal grammar that (used to be) taught every kid in school is a "written down" distillation or idealisation of the more informal habits to be found in spoken language.

So Pattee is simply making the usual argument. Where we find a sharply dichotomised reality, we can then know that it could only have developed out of a vaguer version of itself. And if we reverse a history of symmetry breaking, logic says we arrive back at a state of perfect symmetry - a vagueness, a firstness, an apeiron.

Let me try again : A listing of the parts (the sum of the parts) is a whole no less so than any other arrangement of the parts. And no arrangement carries any more value than any other, accept that the observer chooses to make it so. In other words, we decide to rank the arrangements - to give them value. But such a ranking is not to be found in the arrangements themselves, or we would all share the same rankings.

In reading through the comments, I see that I am repeating a point already made. So I won't belabor the point, but I will leave you with one question. In the aphorism as it is normally given, what exactly is meant by the phrase "the sum of the parts"? Is it a listing of the parts as I've suggested, or something else? I think that the way one interprets that phrase goes a long way toward determining how they view the truth of the aphorism.

Now the aphorism is not entirely without meaning - when properly understood. It actually means, "One arrangement is valued above other arrangements."

A listing of the parts (the sum of the parts) is a whole no less so than any other arrangement of the parts. And no arrangement carries any more value than any other, accept that the observer chooses to make it so. — Real Gone Cat

It's just not the same thing to list a set of components in a way that leaves out the further fact that is their organisation. Especially when my claim is that the parts rely on such active constraints to even be what they are.

Another familiar illustration of the holistic point is try scooping a swirling eddy out of the river in a bucket. Look in the bucket, and the vortex has gone. Proof it only existed as a local feature in a living context.

So you are arguing from a point of view that the whole of nature is composed of substantial entities. And modern physics shows how every such thing is simply the local feature of a dissipative process - an excititation in a field, as they say.

what exactly is meant by the phrase "the sum of the parts"? Is it a listing of the parts as I've suggested, or something else? — Real Gone Cat

No, its not a listing of entities in fact. It is the claim that causality can be reduced to bottom-up construction - a tale of efficient/material causes. So the summing is about the way simple things can construct complex things in purely additive fashion. And then - so this reductionist view goes - you get secondary emergent states with their own properties when there is so much of some stuff that it undergoes a further phase transition. So get enough water molecules at the right temperature and pressure and - voila - liquidity pops out.

But true holism is arguing something much stronger than mere emergentism.

Emergence is already saying the organisation that emerges is more than what can be found in the parts themselves. But my kind of systems holism says wholes - representing mathematical forms and entropic purposes - actually reach down to shape the materiality by which their existence can gain crisp expression.

So even reductionists have their (semi-mystical) notions about emergence (which they try to sooth away by switching to talk about supervenience).

I'm happy to argue the way more radical holism of a systems thinker where there just couldn't even be a cosmos without the limitations that formal and final cause are able to impose on vague material potential.

Aristotle's hylomorphism is essentially correct when understood through the lens of modern symmetry breaking maths. (Ie: the premise behind the latest metaphysical bandwagon of ontic structural realism.)

Now the aphorism is not entirely without meaning - when properly understood. It actually means, "One arrangement is valued above other arrangements." — Real Gone Cat

So you are basically trying to apply a set theoretic point of view - and set theory is famously deficient in being able to account for the rules by which collections could be considered meaningful.

To value some arrangement over other arrangements is to add some rule that gives the collection meaning. So again the whole is more than the sum of its parts. You have your chosen collection in a bag tied up with a bow - and then the further thing of "its value".

Again essence has escaped your attempts at reduction. Again you have ended up with value (or final cause) made a property of the human observer and not a fact accounted for as part of the observable.

Magicians call this misdirection. The hand is quicker than the eye. Reductionists employ the same trick all the time ... on themselves, without realising it. One minute they are talking about explaining the meaning of a collection, the next, they are just pointing to a collection.

Hate to say it, but Pattee is just talking about the necessity of vague beginnings. — apokrisis

Actually I think he is saying the exact opposite. The idea of vague beginnings is what he is dismissing as the wrong approach. He proposes that we reject the idea of meaningless messages slowly becoming meaningful, in favour of the idea of messages which come into existence within the context of a pre-existing environment of a background language. This is what he calls the "primeval ecosystem". The pre-existing language must consist of specific constraints in order that any messages which come into existence can make sense. "A molecule becomes a message only in the context of a larger system of physical constraints which I have called a "language" in analogy to our normal usage of the concept of message." (p.8) As the "language" provides specific rules or constraints, this cannot be construed as "vague beginnings".

He then proceeds to discuss how "reliability, stability, or persistence" of a function is obtained. This occurs when the conditions required by the context, "the language" are fulfilled. The point he seems to be making is that while the meaning of any particular messages, which manifest as the different switches, appears to us as vague, because there are so many complex systems of switches, the primeval language itself, the basic rules or constraints, must be very simple and concise, and therefore not vague at all. This is exemplified by the speed at which the fundamental messaging occurs. Vagueness is in the messages, not in the language itself, which pre-exists the messages.

So the argument is that the primeval "ecosystem language" (and note Pattee is talking specifically about the code half of the dichotomy here) would have condensed out of vaguer, analog, conditions in the same way that the formal grammar that (used to be) taught every kid in school is a "written down" distillation or idealisation of the more informal habits to be found in spoken language. — apokrisis

In making this type of analogy you must be sure to maintain a proper temporal order so as not to confuse cause with effect. The child is taught formal rules of grammar, but these come about following the use of messages, these are derived from the messaging systems which have vagueness inherent within, due to the nature of the messaging system. What Pattee is referring to is the rules or constraints of language which exist prior to any messaging coming into existence. So the messaging system comes into existence, and is formed in such a way as to fulfill the requirements of the pre-existing language, but what the child learns is rules which are derived from messaging system. The former is truly prescriptive, while the latter is descriptive.

Vagueness is in the messages, not in the language itself, which pre-exists the messages. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not exactly. The physical constraints that might in retrospect be recognised as the "primeval ecosystem" can be "crisply informational" for purely accidental reasons. So in the beginning there is spontaneity and contingency. Later develops the regularity of a habit whereby a system of symbols takes on some necessary interpretation.

So - remembering that we are talking about the development of the coding side of the biosemiotic relation - the syntax might seem physically definite in the primeval condition, but the semantics is still maximally contingent. And being uncertain or indeterminate, that makes it spontaneous or vague.

Although vagueness proper speaks to the primeval conditions of the whole semiotic relation of course - both code and dynamics.

In making this type of analogy you must be sure to maintain a proper temporal order so as not to confuse cause with effect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly. Hence my point that it is only in retrospective fashion that we see "accidents" in terms of "necessities".

As we have discussed before, finality acts retrocausally from the future. It is the principle that determines in the long run exactly what are the necessary formal regularities of nature - its structural attractors - and what remains, even at the end of time, just "accidents. Contingencies which continue to be ignorable as they are differences that never make a difference.

So the messaging system comes into existence, and is formed in such a way as to fulfill the requirements of the pre-existing language, but what the child learns is rules which are derived from messaging system. The former is truly prescriptive, while the latter is descriptive. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. You are missing the point again.

What comes first is a vague state of semiotic relations. So chimps grunting in contextually meaningful, yet ungrammatical fashion, is at least some kind of messaging system.

And then the relation develops dichotomistically - each side of the equation strengthening in mutually co-arising fashion.

In human language evolution, we have the development by separation into words and rules. The more that speech becomes syntactically divisible, the more speech also becomes syntactically composable. Developing the syntactic habit of adding suffixes allows the development of a wide variety of semantic categories - like a variety of tenses.

So sure, you do have a division into syntax and semantics - or prescription and description, in your jargon. But the two are still aspects of the one developing dichotomy. And this co-evolutionary logic is why an organic systems perspective (such as Pattee's) never fits your own mechanistic understanding of time and causality.

It's just not the same thing to list a set of components in a way that leaves out the further fact that is their organisation. — apokrisis

So the "sum of the parts" consists of the material parts and their organization (arrangement). How then is the whole different from the sum of the parts? It seems that the parts and their organization must exhaust what constitutes the whole, and therefore are equivalent to the whole. Whatever properties the whole exhibits will also be exhibited by the parts and their organization - which is how you have defined the "sum of the parts" - and the aphorism is shown to be false.

Emergence is already saying the organisation that emerges is more than what can be found in the parts themselves. — apokrisis

I agree that a particular arrangement (organization) may exhibit different properties from the parts when those parts are not placed into that arrangement. But that has been my point all along. Any collection of the parts that is not organized in the given arrangement as needed to form the whole must have a different arrangement, or not exist at all. And different arrangements can have different properties.

Then we supply the value assessment (i.e., rank the arrangements).

Perhaps there are no parts, just wholes. If each part itself is a whole, then perhaps we are talking about a classification issue. The discussion becomes one of how wholes interact. If two Hydrogen atoms meet up with an Oxygen atom, they may yield H20. The whole vs parts issue is transformed into a functional analysis of the relationship between discrete wholes. — Cavacava

Yeah, I like that perspective. Each part is also a whole, and then it's just a matter of how they interact. Combinations of wholes/parts aren't somehow more than the sum of those combinations of wholes/parts.

So the "sum of the parts" consists of the material parts and their organization (arrangement). How then is the whole different from the sum of the parts? It seems that the parts and their organization must exhaust what constitutes the whole, and therefore are equivalent to the whole. Whatever properties the whole exhibits will also be exhibited by the parts and their organization - which is how you have defined the "sum of the parts" - and the aphorism is shown to be false. — Real Gone Cat

I'd just clarify that it's a matter of dynamic organization.

The aphorism arises out of the fact that people overlook relations and processes (or dynamic organization) when they talk about "parts."

It seems that the parts and their organization must exhaust what constitutes the whole, and therefore are equivalent to the whole. — Real Gone Cat

Yep. Even a trivial version of the argument says you have to add the further thing of "the organisation". Summing the parts ain't enough.

And I note you just avoid my point that proper holism stresses the way wholes shape their parts to make them the right stuff.

Wholes have the causal power of constraint or limitation. It is what the organisation can subtract by way of local degrees of freedom that needs to be part of your Metaphysical maths.

I'd just clarify that it's a matter of dynamic organization. — Terrapin Station

I think you miss the holist point that emergence proper is about the emergence of new global boundary conditions that don't interact dynamically but act hierarchically.

So the reductionist just imagines a blur of parts in interaction and - somehow - an organisation emerges.

But holism says emergence is about dynamism becoming isolated by becoming stretched across different spatiotemporal scales. So the higher level order effectively "freezes out" from the point of view of the lower level dynamics. It becomes the stability creating ambience or backdrop - the boundary conditions, as I say.

"new global boundary conditions"
"don't interact dynamically but act hierarchically"
"dynamism becoming isolated"
"becoming stretched across different spatiotemporal scales"
"higher level order"
"lower level dynamics"
"the stability creating ambience or backdrop"

-----If only I had the faintest idea what any of that is supposed to be referring to.

Given you admit you don't understand the first thing about holism or hierarchy theory, you show surprising confidence in your scattergun replies then.

Well, assuming it's not just a bunch of bullshit. Which I'm not at all ready to assume.

You are a funny one. Let me know when you realise that the only way out of a state of deep ignorance is to get reading.

I'm surprised by your humilty.