Kishin comments on The Futility of Emergence - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 August 2007 10:10PM

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Comment author: Kishin 14 February 2011 04:19:03PM -2 points [-]

Again, please help me and let me know if I am wrong, badly wrong, or very badly wrong but a little right, but Eliezer's argument seems to suffer from a couple basic flaws, the use of replacing emergence with magic being the first. It certainly serves its point to draw the parallel's between the current use of emergence and magic, but i could just as easily say, A: The car moves because of (combustion being directed into useful kinetic energy that causes parts to move and the car to run) B: the car moves because of magic as you noted, magic fails to explain everything because it is so general, and so can be compared to anything, in which lies the fallacy. You could make your point about magic and anything just as easily because magic isn't a real explanation, nor is it a good comparative point for anything. and the other point i guess is one that every college freshman knows, "wikipedia is not a liget source of anything. dont use it" though i will say that the comparisons to an engine and go earlier do not serve the purpose of those who support the hypothesis that emergence is a legitimate concept because as I noted above, the individual pieces of an engine do posses the property of motion, the oil and the fire, should you heap all the pieces of a car in a pile atop a bucket of oil and apply fire you will find that each individual piece will gain the property of motion quite rapidly and in your general direction.