Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 10:53:56 -0500
From: Richard Moodey <moodey001-AT-mail1.gannon.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: Emergence


Hi Marsh,

You say: "While the happiness or unhappiness of the marriage is not
determined with certainty, the PROBABILITIES are."  Are you drawing the 
distinction here between the probability of an event, or of a state of 
events, and the probability (or certaintly) of knowledge?  Or, to put it 
differently, are you saying that we certainly know (not just with a high 
degree of probability) what the probabilities are of this kind of marriage 
persisting in a state we would call "happy"?

Regards,

Dick

At 10:38 AM 03/28/2002 -0500, you wrote:


> > [much deleted]
>You may see where I'm going with this. At any given time, the relation of
>emergence between levels 1 and 2 may be one of probabilities: if Moses and
>Mary are of two different faiths and get married, their marriage may be
>happy or unhappy with probabilities p and 1-p (sorry for the example, with
>its heterosexist overtones, but it makes the point particularly clearly --
>much of the reason why some parents want their children to hook up with
>partners from the same background is that the parents believe the
>probabilities of happiness in such situations, q, are > p). This is
>certainly an example of an emergent property. (I'm not saying it actually
>exists.) While the happiness or unhappiness of the marriage is not
>determined with certainty, the PROBABILITIES are. In other words, necessity
>here operates at the level of probabilities.





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