arXiv:2606.07563cs.LGcs.AI2026-06

复杂系统演化中,相似结构为何自发出现?

Emergence via Phase Transitions: Mechanism Landscapes and Universal Convergence Across Complex Systems

  • 用机制景观中的相变模型解释多系统收敛现象
  • 发现能量阈值前权重范数峰值是可复现的预警信号
  • 适用于机器学习、生物演化等跨领域规律研究

在机器学习、生物学和物理学中,尽管微观细节迥异,独立演化的系统常趋同于高度相似的高层次结构。例如随机种子下的神经网络电路趋于一致,进化谱系重复发现类似代谢路径,重整化流趋向共同固定点。本文提出分层涌现框架(HEF),将涌现视为受热力学与信息论定律约束的机制景观中的相变过程。该框架定义临界能量阈值 Ec,区分竞争机制的探索阶段与唯一低成本机制主导的收敛阶段。在结构假设下,证明了物理可行性,推导出严格度量收缩,并建立对初始条件无关的唯一固定点表示的收敛性。进一步通过有效信息连接因果涌现与机制竞争熵。为验证框架,研究了模块化算术变换器中的延迟泛化(“突现”)现象,在111次实验中发现:92%的运行在突现前出现权重范数峰值;归一化准确率曲线均坍缩为tanh拐点形态(R²=0.93),符合朗道-金兹堡普适类;所有突现模型最终准确率稳定在0.9745±0.014,与初始化、权重衰减或训练比例无关(ANOVA p>0.13)。HEF非万能理论,而是可用于跨系统收敛现象研究的可证伪数学框架。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Across machine learning, biology, and physics, independently evolving systems often converge toward strikingly similar high-level structures despite radically different microscopic details. Grokking circuits converge across random seeds, evolutionary lineages rediscover similar metabolic solutions, and renormalization flows approach common fixed points. We propose the Hierarchical Emergence Framework (HEF) as a candidate universality framework for such convergence phenomena. HEF models emergence as a phase transition in a mechanism landscape constrained by thermodynamic and information-theoretic laws. The framework introduces a critical energy threshold Ec separating an exploration regime with competing mechanisms from a convergence regime governed by a unique minimum-cost mechanism. Under structural assumptions, we prove physical feasibility, derive strict metric contraction, and establish convergence toward a unique fixed-point representation independent of initial conditions. We further connect this convergence structure to causal emergence through Effective Information and mechanism competition entropy. To test the framework, we study delayed generalization ("grokking") in modular arithmetic transformers across 111 experiments. We identify a reproducible empirical fingerprint of the Ec transition: the weight norm peaks systematically before grokking in 92% of runs. Normalized accuracy curves collapse onto a tanh kink (R^2=0.93) consistent with a Landau-Ginzburg universality class, and all grokked models converge to 0.9745+/-0.014 regardless of initialization, weight decay, or training fraction (ANOVA p>0.13). HEF is not presented as a universal theory of emergence, but as a falsifiable mathematical scaffold for studying convergence phenomena across complex systems.

涌现机制相变收敛性机器学习

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