The Brain as an Emergent System and ...
Characterizer of/Participant in Emergent Systems

Paul Grobstein
Emergent Systems Working Group
28 May 2003
(Participant List)

Looking for the Pattern:
Themes Problems
The Basics

Looking at a higher level of organization - Lateral inhibition

And one level higher - the painter/author and the audience
  • once again irreversibility
  • once again information loss and creation, based on pre-existing information/structure
  • creation of new structure dependent on structure created by loss
  • info not "lost" but repackaged? greater improbability because of organization of previous improbabilities? details lost as abstraction becomes part of more complex structure?
  • NO ONE IN CHARGE - bidirectional causation
  • "consciousness" is extension of novelty generation by intepretation
    • within laws of physics, including second law of thermodynamics
    • is an emergent characteristic of a material exploratory process
    • accelerates that process

And higher still - the brain as a part


Conclusions?


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