In comments a while back, I posed the question "Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?" Reading about "emergent properties" and complexity theories was a little too abstract for me to get my mind around. Then a simple analogy popped into mind.
Consider two individuals, each with a key to a safety deposit box...as usual the two distinct keys are required to open the box. Individually, their ability to open the box is zero. Each only has one key and two are needed. The sum of the parts then, of their individual abilities, is zero. Yet, if the two can connect with one another, the ability to open the box "emerges".
Now, expand that to many individuals, many connections. So often, life is approached as a zero sum game...with winners and losers. Survival of the fittest. However, a fresh look, considering emergence, alludes to a non-zero sum game as well. Perhaps this is why I find the source of novelty fascinating and look upon emergence as a perspective on that.
Aside, I like to explore the ecology of living systems. I have always enjoyed leaving the city behind and exploring woods, streams, fields, and lakes. There is something to interacting with nature, to connecting, relating, belonging. Veins and rivers. A system within a system.
Stress on the environment, on society, on ourselves, brings me back to emergence. My own deep stirrings are for a world that will never be the same. These are not necessarily good or bad. A portion of the world is simply being enacted within. Senses, intuitions, and emotions ebb and flow. What can I say...a new moment emerges.
6 comments:
Yes, n2! And though we may theorise we don't know why we find certain things fascinating, do we?
YVES: I'll go along with that. The phrase "grasping at straws" came to mind.
There is no fixed rules about 'right and wrong', only the individual mindset and point of view.
PINK GINGER: I agree. It's a matter of perspective. I find it helps greatly to recognize that in ourselves and others.
Don't you feel that there may be another way to knowledge as well as Western science? I'm not advocating New Age stuff as I find it has been corrupted by commerce and is terribly second-hand and superficial much of the time. I mean going within oneself to experience the nature of things, because we are part of it and our genes testify to our own past. I feel it is possible to do this, like a shaman or a seer; but the moment we try to formulate it in words to speak of it, we put it into metaphors which falsify it.
There is an aspect of science, too, which explains through metaphors. Otherwise all you have is obervations and measurements.
YVES: I do agree. I realize in hindsight that I have been using Western science to validate the “within”. I can’t say I’ve given my genes much of a standing. Never really gave them much thought before. But, I have given “my” human nature more consideration since our paths have crossed.
Not sure where this will lead. I’ve reached my saturation point with Western science for now. I’ve pulled away from preplanning blog entries and try to let them flow a little more naturally.
But, using metaphor, I’m more aware of artificial “programming”. So, I don’t want to necessarily throw away one control for another, if you know what I mean. Hypersensitive perhaps…but that (hypersensitivity) I recognize has been with me all my life, so I gotta believe it’s something ingrained.
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