![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.obsidiannoise.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Janus-dimon21.jpeg\" "\\"Janus-dimon21\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nJanus has two faces and is the human symbolic form of what in Asia emerged as “yin yang”, the complimentary of opposites that require each other for existence as much as they negate each other. The key to understanding “emergence” is to accept that both models of emergence– reductionistic and holistic– are mere perspectives, not exclusives, on the possibility of emergence. They work together to describe the the issue, or not at all.<\/p>\n
The last thought of the day comes from Anderson, 1972<\/a>, who describes the chief misconception of emergence. He says the ability to reduce all things to fundamental laws and rules (which is what I’m doing in my work now) does not imply the ability to reconstruct the universe from those rules, nor should it. He uses a few examples of where this doesn’t work: psychology is not “applied biology”, and biology is not merely “applied chemistry”. If it were, we’d be so much further along than we are, we’d have solved most if not all of the basic problems we face in terms of health and environment. The reason we haven’t solved those problems is because the constructionist approach to the universe doesn’t work. As Anderson says: “We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts.”(Anderson 1972) Understanding complex problems requires a systems thinking method of engagement, thinking about the world as a system of systems, rather than as direct or linear causal chains.<\/p>\n Let’s evoke Janus<\/a> for some guidance.<\/p>\n Just stay on his good side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The debate about whether it’s possible that a “whole” of something can be predicted by the properties of its parts is timeless. It stretches back. Think about the arguments of determinism and causality versus human free will. I could go … Continue reading