The Self-transcending Construction of an Emergent Community

Jeffrey Goldstein, Ph.D.Adelphi University

April 26, 2008

NOT: The Self-organization of an Emergent Community

An Example of an Emergent Social Entrepreneurial Community:

Barka Foundation for the Promotion of Mutual Help

Barka Foundation for the Promotion of Mutual Help

• In early 1990s, gov’t stopped subsidizing collective farms with the result that thousands became homeless;

• Tomasz Sadowski and his wife, both psychologists, purchased abandoned schoolhouse and renovated it and started farming;

• By 2003 there were 20 such homes/farms; mature “mother” houses hatch new smaller homes and farms;

• Residents manage each home and farm with assistance of Barka’s staff;

• One resident, “We are all people with problems…biggest miracle is that we sit at one table and talk with each... at the end of the day I feel needed”

• Sadowski: “People told us that it wasn’t possible to create such an inclusive feeling…there is nothing mysterious about it. …The worst criminal doesn’t believe things can be this way only because he has never come across these kinds of relationships..”

Barka Foundation for the Promotion of Mutual Help

Sadowski: “People told us that it wasn’t

possible to create such an inclusive

feeling…there is nothing mysterious about

it. …The worst criminal doesn’t believe

things can be this way only because he has

never come across these kinds of

relationships..”interaction resonance; possibility and hope

life consciousness speciation project life consciousness speciation project

teams multi-organisms artificial life the teams multi-organisms artificial life the

InternetInternet

magnetism superfluidity magnetism superfluidity

superconductivitysuperconductivity

additional computational functionalityadditional computational functionality

dissipative structures optimal options dissipative structures optimal options

pricesprices

perception of color attractors and their perception of color attractors and their

basinsbasins

drug interactions leadership drug interactions leadership

behavior behavior

software “bugs” temperature software “bugs” temperature

citiescities

wars scientific revolutions Benard wars scientific revolutions Benard

cells cells creative ideas giant creative ideas giant

graph component graph component

EXAMPLES OF EMERGENCEEXAMPLES OF EMERGENCE

Social entrepreneurial projects

Characteristics of Emergent Phenomena

Radically Novel (Incommensurable) Coordination, Integrity, Collective, Wholeness Unpredictable (Ostensive) Non-deducible Irreducible (Not traceable) Self-transcendent (Emerge out of but distinct from)

Growing Sophistication of Science

Experientialism: Bergson, James, Whitehead

Anti-mechanismDiscontent with Evolutionary Continuism

Revisions of causality: Mill’s heteropathiccausality

EMERGENCE

Source of the Idea of Emergence: 19th,20th Centuries

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Emergent Bases

BEYOND SELF-BEYOND SELF-ORGANIZATIONORGANIZATIONEXCESSES OF THE “SELF-”OF SELF-EXCESSES OF THE “SELF-”OF SELF-

ORGANIZATIONORGANIZATION

Emergent Base (antecedents)

Emergent Phenomena (consequents)

Typical Complexity Perspective: Self-organization=Processes of Emergence

Decoupling of Emergence from Self-Org.

Emergent Base (antecedents)

Emergent Phenomena (consequents)

Processes of Emergence

Must be Powerful Enough to Generate Phenomena with the Properties of Emergents

Characteristics of Emergent Phenomena

Radically Novel (Incommensurable) Coordination, Integrity, Collective, Wholeness Unpredictable (Ostensive) Non-deducible Irreducible (Not traceable) Self-transcendent (Emerge out of but distinct from)

Reiser’s Transfinite Aggregates

Holland’s Sets of Equations that Change CardinalityCrutchfield’s

Calculi of Emergence

Bennett’s Logical Depth Cohen’s/Stewart’s

Existence Theorem for Emergent Phenomena

Piaget’s Logico-Mathematical Constructions

Fontana’s and Buss’s Computational Constructions

Rosen’s Non-formalizability

?

Reiser’s Transfinite Aggregates

Holland’s Sets of Equations that Change CardinalityCrutchfield’s

Calculi of Emergence

Bennett’s Logical Depth Cohen’s/Stewart’s

Existence Theorem for Emergent Phenomena

Piaget’s Logico-Mathematical Constructions

Fontana’s and Buss’s Computational Constructions

Rosen’s Non-formalizability

(Anti-) Diagonalization

Reiser’s Transfinite Aggregates

Holland’s Sets of Equations that Change CardinalityCrutchfield’s

Calculi of Emergence

Bennett’s Logical Depth Cohen’s/Stewart’s

Existence Theorem for Emergent Phenomena

Piaget’s Logico-Mathematical Constructions

Fontana’s and Buss’s Computational Constructions

Rosen’s Non-formalizability

Limitative Theorems of Gödel and Turing

Reiser’s Transfinite Aggregates

Holland’s Sets of Equations that Change CardinalityCrutchfield’s

Calculi of Emergence

Bennett’s Logical Depth Cohen’s/Stewart’s

Existence Theorem for Emergent Phenomena

Piaget’s Logico-Mathematical Constructions

Fontana’s and Buss’s Computational Constructions

Rosen’s Non-formalizability

Self-transcending

Constructions

Construction of anti-diagonal sequence to transcend Construction of anti-diagonal sequence to transcend

cardinality of rational numbers:cardinality of rational numbers:

Definition 1: Definition 1: RR is a 3-place relation among x,y,z represented is a 3-place relation among x,y,z represented as as DD11 and and DD22 making-up vertical and horizontal arrays of making-up vertical and horizontal arrays of

rationalsrationalsDefinition 2: A diagonal Definition 2: A diagonal FF is constructed on is constructed on DD11 and and DD22 so that so that

the mapping is a bijection the mapping is a bijection DD11 ----> > DD22

Definition 3: Definition 3: GG is the value of the diagonal is the value of the diagonal FF in in RRDefinition 4: Definition 4: STCSTC is an anti-diagonal of is an anti-diagonal of FF in in R so thatR so that ((STCxyzSTCxyz = =¬ Gxyz¬ Gxyz))

NOTE: NOTE: ¬ ¬ IS A NEGATION OPERATOR WHICH ALLOWS STC IS A NEGATION OPERATOR WHICH ALLOWS STC TO TRANSCEND CARDINALITY OF RATIONALSTO TRANSCEND CARDINALITY OF RATIONALS

Formalism of STC (incl. Negation) -Formalism of STC (incl. Negation) -ADAPTED FROM SIMMONSADAPTED FROM SIMMONS

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Emergent Bases

STC’s

Emergence as Self-transcending Constructions:

New logic for emergent novelty generation:

following and negation

Active leadership roles -establishing ecology of innovation

Emergent Novelty and Creativity

“In a sense, I put together elements that were already there, but that is what inventors always do. You can’t make up new elements, usually. The new element, if any, it was the combination, the way they were used.”

-- Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate for his invention of polymerase chain

reaction (PCR)

Emergent Novelty and Creativity

“Invention is imagination along with a pile of junk.

-- Thomas Alva Edison

Prigogine’s later definition of self-organization:

• “…constrained situated dependentness"

CONSTRUCTIONAL CONSTRUCTIONAL SOURCES OF NOVELTYSOURCES OF NOVELTY

CONTAINERSCONTAINERS

[RECURSION WITH [RECURSION WITH NEGATION] (SELF-NEGATION] (SELF-DISSIMILARITY BETWEEN DISSIMILARITY BETWEEN SCALES)SCALES)

SELF-TRANSCENDING SELF-TRANSCENDING CONSTRUCTIONSCONSTRUCTIONS

RANDOMNESSRANDOMNESS

ALREADY EXISTING ORDERALREADY EXISTING ORDER

Self-transcending Constructions, not Just Spontaneous Processes

• Building Bocks as the Already Given (Structures, Dynamics, Properties)

• Not Subjugation to Process or Temporal Flow

• Non-Oppositional

• Based on Constructional Resources and Operations

• Free Act of Creativity but Not Order for Free

Criticalization Phenomena

Morphogenesis -- Turing

Phase Transitions

Self-organization

Self-organized Criticality

Symmetry Breaking

Chemical control parameters

Nonlinearity and Instability

Turing Reaction Diffusion Symmetry Breaking

Linfa Yang

Symmetry Breaking

Temperature Increase (control parameter)

Tc

Order parameter ()increases

Self-organizing Systems (Prigogine; Haken)

Goodwin’s Morphogenetic Fields

Symmetry Breaking

TemperatureDecreases (control parameter)

Tc

Order parameter ()increases

Critical Phenomenon in Condensed Matter Physics

Self-transcending Construction of the Emergence of a Giant Component in a so-called “random” Graph

--(from Barabasi)

HOPE AND TRANSCENDENCE AND STC

• [...hope doesn’t] overcome the “powers defining those situations experienced as hopeless by ‘fighting’ them, rather ‘by transcending them.’

“Reflecting on hope is perhaps our most direct means of apprehending the meaning of the word ‘transcendence.’

• -Gabriel Marcel

“Without hope we not only cannot wait, we cannot even put one foot in front of the

other.” –Leslie Farber

“...to hope until hope creates From its own wreck the thing it

contemplates.”-Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound”

Transcendence, Emergence, and Hope

Isaiah 43:19:

[Whose Name is “I am that I am”]

says to you,

‘Look, I am doing something new -- It is emerging right now, Can’t you see it?

I am creating a path in the wilderness, And rivers out of the desert.’