Week 3 (emergence)

I believe a duality exists in science, where its true nature may be rendered either quantitative or qualitative depending on the perspective from which it is viewed. Convention states that for something to be considered science, it must be quantitative with measurements and equations that will, in theory, demystify the scenarios and questions that surface in any scientific field and explain phenomena like Langston's Ant. In reality, if every issue could be reduced to a simple calculation, most of Man’s enduring questions about himself and the world around him would have, in all likelihood, been put to rest in the last few centuries of unprecedented inquiry and "progress". Therefore, science must exist in a more qualitative nature and should be approached instead by studying the logical contexts of these computations--through a context like emergence.

In many ways, the scientific drive to gain and possess knowledge lies at the heart of human nature. Man seeks to exert dominance and to demonstrate mastery of the world around him, and it is in this drive for physical and psychological control that the fundamental “problem” occurs. Mark Twain once said: "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact". As this statement insinuates, scientists frequently spend a short amount of time experimenting and calculating before arriving at a conclusion, which is often incomplete but accepted as universal fact. If one studies the progression of leading scientific theory over the centuries, it becomes painfully evident that one is only “true” as long as it has not been disproved by another. Regardless if one is talking about the makeup of the solar system or the anatomy of a body, humans generate volumes of conjecture based on incomplete evidence and guesswork in an attempt to fully understand the dynamics of a system. To the human mind, this understanding represents knowledge. In turn, knowledge is viewed as a kind of ownership and mastery over information; this ownership only further imparts to Man a sense of control that may not be entirely stable in its foundation. The only thing that humans can be sure of is that they are only just beginning to understand how and why things work. Langston's Ant is proof of this. In fact, there may be many more questions posed before Man's ability to fully and thoughtfully answer them catches up. Overall, there continues to be new discoveries because there still remains that much more that Man does not even realize he does not know.

This is a bit random, but I was working at the Franklin Institute today and one of the exhibits reminded me of what we've been talking about very strongly. Basically, this particular exhibit is about the intersection of physics and art. In one part, there were many pendulums set up containing sand that slowly leaked out so that they made patterns as they moved. Each stand was different, but each had only one pendulum (for example, one had a conveyor belt under the pendulum that complicated the pattern that the sand made.)

There was also a strange structure next to them that was composed of three cogs that one could turn individually or in different combinations; as each cog was turned, a luminescent tracing was left by a needle. The bottom line is that these showed how "complicated things can get when you combine two or more simple motions." It's mind-blowing to think that this concept can also explain the evolution of consciousness.

On a slight tangent, I was reading about Bergson today and thought about emergence yet again. It may not seem terribly related, but the author was talking about how the philosopher Bergson disagreed with Darwin's theory of evolution in that it did not explain the evolution of instinct or of consciousness. They can't be the inherited accumulation of acquired characteristic habits; it's generally agreed that that's not how evolution works. So how did these higher functions come to be? Maybe both instinct and reason emerged fully formed, but that makes little sense. Perhaps it makes more sense to think of instinct and reason not as discrete, heritable characteristics but as emergent properties which are intrinsic to the human brain and are acted upon by internal interactions and external forces throughout life. Instinct and reason didn't emerge spontaneously; perhaps they were inevitable byproducts given the evolving structure of the brain.

And while I'm on a roll with the general incoherence, does anyone think that the emergence of life is inevitable given reasonable conditions? It seems as if life exists everywhere on earth: beneath the earth, in deep sea vents, in the Arctic... For years scientists thought that life could only exist within very narrow parameters; however, now it's known that microorganisms exist everywhere on our planet. It seems as if life is destined to exist, as if chemical components are innately compelled to interact and form more complex structures. It just never seems to stop.

So this with regard to the excitement while trying to make Langton's Ant do something "surprising" and "unusual".

I was able to make the turtles create symmetry as they moved. I noticed that only an even number of turtles can lead to symmetry, and that is quite understandable. However, the surprising thing is that each even number would not lead to symmetry if moved a certain number of steps - for example, 2 turtles would not make symmetry if they were moved 8 steps forward, 10 turtles wouldnt work if moved 2 steps and so on and so forth. Another thing to notice was that 6 turtles never made symmetry, no matter how many number of steps and 8 turtles always made symmetry no matter how many number of steps. I was trying to look for a pattern in this pattern of symmetry, but couldnt find one.

Any thoughts?

I've been listening to a lot of 20th century classical music lately, which all of a sudden gave me this idea: can emergent systems be used to compose—or, less controversially, produce—music? (People like John Cage have in the past exploited randomness and chance to "compose" music.)

Obviously, the answer to this question is yes, supposing that we define music simply as organized sound. But what if, for example, you rigged up Langston's Ant so that every step the ant made was linked to a specific note?—or something like that

This idea also reminded me of Douglast Adams' book "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency." More specifically, one of the characters, Gordon Way, gets rich by writing a program that produces music based on a company's financial statements, which is a pretty wild idea.

On the subject of Douglas Adams, it would seem that the Dirk Gently detective novels have much in common with Emergence. For example, Dirk Gently solves his cases based on his belief in "the fundamental interconnectedness of everything."

In conclusion, I will endeavor to somehow modify Langston's ant to produce music—if this is even possible. I think it will be very interesting to hear the exact point when pattern arises out of chaos.