local interactions, no blueprint, no conductor order from randomness infinitely generative formally not predictable except by iteration emergent stability "potential information" (non-random distribution of elements, "decodable") missing elements continuing indeterminacy (contrast to Wolfram) internal information storage

Broadening the scope: emergence on a cosmic scale

http://template.bio.warwick.ac.uk/staff/amillar/video.html Biological evolution - model makers internal information acquisition and storage ("hill climbing") stability enhancement through ability to anticipate change exploratory enhancement through sexual reproduction Cultural/scientific evolution - story tellers new forms of both internal and external information storage stability enhancement through predictive capabilities exploratory enhancement through counter-factuals (beyond random change and "hill climbing")

Biological evolution - the strengths and limitations of model-makers

• Ongoing exploration of space of possibilites, including enhanced "complexity"

• Appearance of multiple highly adaptive and interacting organizations

• Lack of unitary organization, purpose, meaning

• Lack of counterfactuals

• The reality and significance of counter-factuals
  (see recently "We believe that names have a powerful influence on the experiments we do and the way in which we think")
• Stories as distinctive organizations of matter/energy, new information
• Two distinct information-processing styles - metonym and metaphor, distributed and unitary/coherent
• Getting beyond hill climbing

Science as story telling: exploration/creation rather than discovery

• Commonalities between evolution, living organisms, science - information acquisition through hill climbing
• The addition of "story", story telling styles, and community testing in the bipartite brain/science/culture
• Skepticism as the motivator/guarantor
• Information as platform for future rather than summary of past, description of present