Russ Abbott Dept. of Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles and

1. Russ Abbott Dept. of Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles and The Aerospace Corporation Emergence: the rest of the observable, exploitable order in the universe http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/holland-on-emergence/ Thermodynamic Computing Unused Slides from the UCLA HCS Conference at Lake Arrowhead May 2005

2. All software is stigmergically epiphenomenal over the instruction execution cycle, which is stigmergically epiphenomenal over electron flows. Epiphenomenal gliders/software • Game of Life gliders exemplify emergence. • Gliders are not generated explicitly. • There is no glider algorithm. • Gliders are not visible in the rules. • Gliders are generated stigmergically. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

3. Software executions as emergence As programmers we are so used to creating emergent effects that they seem commonplace • The execution of any piece of software results in an emergent phenomenon. • A software execution is a sequence of instruction executions, none of which individually achieve the effect of the entire sequence. • A computer’s instruction execution cycle is itself an emergent phenomenon of the laws of physics acting on electrons. • Both are similar to the emergence of a glider in the Game of Life. • All are the result of a process shaped by its environment. Same for any creative human activity. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

4. Computing/Nature as stigmergy Stigmergy: controlling, i.e., programming, a process by changing the environment in which it operates. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

5. Nihil ex nihilo: nothing from nothing • In Computer Science we assume that one can specify a TM, an FSA, or a piece of software, and it will do its thing—for free. • In the real world one needs energy to drive processes. • To run software one needs a real computer. • Also, the virtual interactions in a Game-of-Life pattern library must be implemented at the level of Game-of-Life rules. • The patterns must approach each other very precisely. • In Computer Science we hide those low level interactions from ourselves and pretend the world can be stratified into disjoint layers. • But the universe is not a layered hierarchy. • Source of most security problems. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

6. Entity • An area of persistent locally reduced entropy. • Real; not epiphenomenal. • Intrinsically maintained: • At-equilibrium: particles, atoms, and molecules. • Far-from-equilibrium: entities whose reduced entropy is maintained by ongoing processes that extract energy and materials from the environment and use them to maintain an internal structure. • Extrinsically maintained: • Man-made artifacts: the processes that maintain them (i.e., maintenance) are externally applied. (Theseus’s ship; Lock’s socks.) • Attractor-based entities: can step into the same river twice. • Entity trace, another low-entropy phenomenon • A vestige left behind by an entity. • E.g., unmaintained artifacts, physical (sound, water) waves • Tend to deteriorate; entropy increases. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

7. Two kinds of self-perpetuating entities • Entities at an energy equilibrium • fundamental particles, atoms, and molecules • the whole (mass) is less than the sum of its parts • Entities that are “far from equilibrium” • e.g., biological, economic, political, and social entities • The entity isn’t the components at any one time. E.g., the longest established, permanent floating crap game in NY. • Far-from-equilibrium entities are process-based. • Not necessarily the same as Prigogine’s dissipative structures, which tend to be passive—energy is pumped in. • They are active—acquire energy (fuel) from the environment. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

8. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Hurricanes/ A hurricane as a far-from-equilibrium entity • Generates heat internally—by condensation rather than combustion • “Consumes fuel”—different from Prigogine’s dissipative structures • Energy produced powers its self-perpetuating processes. • Design: a hurricane has adesign; one can talk about how it works. • Fitness: persists (self-perpetuating) as long as the environment within which it finds itself provides adequate resources given its design. • moist warm surface air • cool dryer condensation area in upper atmosphere Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

9. What does fitness mean for far-from-equilibrium entities? • Not • a bank account balance • conformance to an ideal, e.g., a fitness function • reproductive success • Fitness for an environment: an entity’s ability to acquire from its environment the energy and material resources needed to sustain and perpetuate its life processes. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

10. No base modeling level How would you respond to a challenge from an intelligent design proponent to model the evolution of any sense? • No good models of biological arms races • Combatants exploit and/or disrupt or otherwise foil each other’s internal processes. • insects vs. plants (biochemistry) • echolocation vs. defensive measures (biophysics) • red-light spray vs. the state (range from basic physics to bribery) • Tierra and successors didn’t get far enough. • Genetic programming went in a different direction. • Geckos climb walls by exploiting the Van der Waals effect. • To build a model in which geckos evolve the ability to climb walls, one needs a model of a world that includes enough quantum physics for the Van der Walls effect to appear. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com

11. Whence complexity? • Regularities (features of the universe having relatively reduced entropy) form and then serve as the basis for the formation of additional regularities, thereby building ever increasing complexity. • Why is the universe not as simple as possible? • The process whereby these regularities form and whether or not they survive is contingent, historical, constructive, and creative and cannot be explicated through a reductionist analysis. • Anderson: the ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws … [does not imply] the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. “More is Different,” Science, 1972. Russ.Abbott@GMail.com