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In-Depth Information
In the example of Fig.
15.1
, the individual Roman and Greek letters and nu-
merals are the primitives of a symbol-string system. Although concrete letters and
numerals themselves do indeed have internal structure, in terms of strokes, arcs, and
straight lines, these parts play no functional role in the system beyond supporting
the distinction and recognition of their unitary symbol types. Once the classification
of the type of symbol is made, the internal structure of the lines and curves become
irrelevant. Were we to suddenly to adopt a frame in which the lines and curves are
the primitives, then the appearance of the new symbols on the right, the Greek let-
ters alpha and lambda, would not surprise us because these can be formed though
combinations of the lower level strokes.
The combinatoric-creative distinction parallels ontological vs. epistemological
modes of explanation. The debate that occurred in 1976 in France between Piaget,
Chomsky, and Fodor over the origins of new ideas is illuminating. As organiser-
participant Piatelli-Palmarini (
1980
) so elegantly pointed out, this was really a de-
bate over the existence and nature of emergent novelty in the world. The two poles of
the debate were held by Fodor (
1980
) and Piaget (
1980
). Fodor argued an extreme
preformationist view in which all learning is belief-fixation, i.e. selection from a
fixed repertoire of possible beliefs, such that entirely new ideas are not possible.
Piaget presented an emergentist view in which qualitatively novel, irreducible con-
cepts in mathematics have been created anew over the course of its history.
All that is possible in traditional ontological frameworks is recombination of ex-
isting possible constituents, whereas in epistemological frameworks, novelty can
reflect surprise on the part of a limited observer. Another way of putting this
is that ontologically-oriented perspectives adopt fixed, universal frames, whereas
epistemologically-oriented ones are interested in which kinds of systems cause the
limited observer to change frames and also what changes occur in the limited ob-
server when frames are changed.
Second-order cybernetics (von Foerster
2003
), systems theory (Kampis
1991
),
pragmatist theories of science (van Fraassen
1980
), and constructivist epistemolo-
gies (von Glasersfeld
2007
) are all concerned with “observing systems” that con-
struct their own observational and interpretative frames. In Piaget's words “In-
telligence organises itself to organise the world” (von Glasersfeld
1992
). We ex-
amine different kinds of conceivable self-constructing observing-acting systems in
Sect.
15.3
. When these systems change their frames, they behave in novel ways that
cause those observing them to alter their own frames (Sect.
15.4
).
15.2.3 Novel Combinations of Closed Sets of Primitives
Combinatoric emergence engages a fixed set of primitives that are combined in new
ways to form emergent structures. In biological evolution the genetic primitives
are DNA nucleotide sequences. On shorter evolutionary timescales microevolution-
ary processes select amongst combinations of existing genetic sequences, whereas
on longer timescales macroevolutionary processes entail selection amongst entirely
