Emergentism

[Grames]

I am actually in favor of emergence and have been all along.

Binswanger comes out in favor of emergence as metaphysical in his book "The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts".

An emergentist teleologist ... sees goal directedness as an "emergent property" of matter. By an "emergent property" I mean a property which is possessed by the whole qua whole and is not possessed by the parts.

One must clearly distinguish this view from others which go by the same name. There are a number of different positions in various areas of philosophy which are called "emergentist" (see Ernest Nagel's discussion in chapter 11 of The Structure of Science). What I am here calling the emergentist school of teleology is not characterized by C. D. Broad's view that an emergent property is a property of a whole which could not be predicted from a complete knowledge of the properties of its components. Emergentism, in my terminology, is a metaphysical rather than an epistemological position. This view of emergentism is well expressed by biologists Robert Haynes and Philip Hanawalt: "insofar as any complex system is more than the sum of its parts, it is so by virtue of the controlled interactions or modes of regulation of these parts."

[Vik]

I'm wondering if there is a general consensus on whether there are emergent properties here, and if there is some consensus that there is, what is a general account of which properties are emergent (molecular properties not due to properties of the constitutive atoms, consciousness, etc.).

If you separated a water molecule into atomic hydrogen and atomic oxygen, it would no longer be a water molecule. A chemical bond is the sum of the interactions between the atoms keeping them together in a certain way. Bonding arises out of entity-interaction.

"Emergent properties" merely reflect how an assemblage behaves because it's an *assemblage* of *entities* subjected to such and such conditions.

Composition is not a license to sever action potentials from constituent entities. So anyone who says that the properties of a water molecule are not caused by the properties of hydrogen and oxygen are denying causality.

[Vik]

I'm wondering if there is a general consensus on whether there are emergent properties here, and if there is some consensus that there is, what is a general account of which properties are emergent (molecular properties not due to properties of the constitutive atoms, consciousness, etc.).

To put it another way, all interactions are caused by the constitutive properties of the entities, by their structure, etc.

[Leonid]

In their book Biological Self-organization Camazine et al. (2001: 8) define self organization:

‘‘As a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower level components of the system. Moreover the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short pattern is an emergent property of the system rather than being imposed on the system by an external ordering influence.’’

Life emergent properties are not more magic than emergent property of a rolling ball as result of connection of its halves. None of it parts have a property of rolling, its only appears as a result of interaction between them. Such a property for the obvious reason cannot be reduced to the any part of the ball. So emergent properties of life like self-sustained self-initiated goal orientated action which appears as result of interaction of non-biotic parts cannot be reduced to them.

Edited January 12, 2011 by Leonid

[Vik]

In their book Biological Self-organization Camazine et al. (2001: 8) define self organization:

‘‘As a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower level components of the system. Moreover the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short pattern is an emergent property of the system rather than being imposed on the system by an external ordering influence.’’

Life emergent properties are not more magic than emergent property of a rolling ball as result of connection of its halves. None of it parts have a property of rolling, its only appears as a result of interaction between them. Such a property for the obvious reason cannot be reduced to the any part of the ball. So emergent properties of life like self-sustained self-initiated goal orientated action which appears as result of interaction of non-biotic parts cannot be reduced to them.

The funny thing is that some people try to say that science can "break things down" but "can't build them back up". It is as if they think that ignorance of when and where components produce an assemblage somehow invalidates the proposition that they DO produce the assemblage. I think an understanding of measurement-omission would clear that up.

[Leonid]

Why, one can break down anything and than wonder why he cannot find free will by means of autopsy .