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In philosophy[citation needed], emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them.[1] Within the philosophy of science, emergentism is analyzed both as it contrasts with and parallels reductionism.[1][2]
Emergent properties are not identical with, reducible to, or deducible[3] from the other properties. The different ways in which this independence requirement can be satisfied lead to variant types of emergence.
Forms
Emergentism can be compatible with physicalism,[4] the theory that the universe is composed exclusively of physical entities, and in particular with the evidence relating changes in the brain with changes in mental functioning.
Some varieties of emergentism are not specifically concerned with the mind–body problem but constitute a theory of the nature of the universe comparable to pantheism.[5] They suggest a hierarchical or layered view of the whole of nature, with the layers arranged in terms of increasing complexity with each requiring its own special science. Reductionists respond that the arrangement of the sciences is a matter of convenience, and that chemistry is derivable from physics (and so forth) in principle, an argument which gained force after the establishment of a quantum-mechanical basis for chemistry.[6]
Relationship to vitalism
Emmeche et al. (1998) state that "there is a very important difference between the vitalists and the emergentists: the vitalist's creative forces were relevant only in organic substances, not in inorganic matter. Emergence hence is creation of new properties regardless of the substance involved." "The assumption of an extra-physical vitalis (vital force, entelechy, élan vital, etc.), as formulated in most forms (old or new) of vitalism, is usually without any genuine explanatory power. It has served altogether too often as an intellectual tranquilizer or verbal sedative—stifling scientific inquiry rather than encouraging it to proceed in new directions."[7]
History
C. D. Broad
British philosopher C. D. Broad defended a realistic epistemology in The Mind and its Place in Nature (1925) arguing that emergent materialism is the most likely solution to the mind–body problem.
Broad defined emergence as follows:
Put in abstract terms the emergent theory asserts that there are certain wholes, composed (say) of constituents A, B, and C in a relation R to each other; that all wholes composed of constituents of the same kind as A, B, and C in relations of the same kind as R have certain characteristic properties; that A, B, and C are capable of occurring in other kinds of complex where the relation is not of the same kind as R; and that the characteristic properties of the whole R(A, B, C) cannot, even in theory, be deduced from the most complete knowledge of the properties of A, B, and C in isolation or in other wholes which are not of the form R(A, B, C).
This definition amounted to the claim that mental properties would count as emergent if and only if philosophical zombies were metaphysically possible[citation needed]. Many philosophers take this position to be inconsistent with some formulations of psychophysical supervenience.
Jaegwon Kim
Addressing emergentism (under the guise of non-reductive physicalism) as a solution to the mind–body problem Jaegwon Kim has raised an objection based on causal closure and overdetermination.
Emergentism strives to be compatible with physicalism, and physicalism, according to Kim, has a principle of causal closure according to which every physical event is fully accountable in terms of physical causes. This seems to leave no "room" for mental causation to operate. If our bodily movements were caused by the preceding state of our bodies and our decisions and intentions, they would be overdetermined. Mental causation in this sense is not the same as free will, but is only the claim that mental states are causally relevant. If emergentists respond by abandoning the idea of mental causation, their position becomes a form of epiphenomenalism.
In detail: he proposes using the chart on the right (which was originally drawn with the $ by Nancey Murphy[8]) that M1 causes M2 (these are mental events) and P1 causes P2 (these are physical events). P1 realises M1 and P2 realises M2. However M1 does not causally effect P1 (i.e., M1 is a consequent event of P1). If P1 causes P2, and M1 is a result of P1, then M2 is a result of P2. He says that the only alternatives to this problem is to accept dualism (where the mental events are independent of the physical events) or eliminativism (where the mental events do not exist).
See also
Notes
- ^ a b O'Connor, Timothy and Wong, Hong Yu, "Emergent Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/properties-emergent/>.
- ^ Kistler, Max (2006). "New Perspectives on Reduction and Emergence in Physics, Biology and Psychology". Synthese. 151 (3): 311–312. ISSN 0039-7857. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
- ^ Hoel, E. P., Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2013). Quantifying causal emergence shows that macro can beat micro. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(49), 19790–19795. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314922110
- ^ Being Emergence vs. Pattern Emergence: Complexity, Control, and Goal-Directedness in Biological Systems, Jason Winning & William Bechtel In Sophie Gibb, Robin Hendry & Tom Lancaster (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Emergence. London: pp. 134-144 (2019)
- ^ Franklin, James (2019). "Emergentism as an option in the philosophy of religion: Between materialist atheism and pantheism" (PDF). Suri: Journal of the Philosophical Association of the Philippines. 8 (2): 1–22. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- ^ Crane, T. The Significance of Emergence
- ^ Dictionary of the History of Ideas Archived 2011-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Murphy, Nancey; Brown, Warren S. (2007). Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 65, n.40. ISBN 9780199215393.
Further reading
- Beckermann, Ansgar, Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim, eds., Emergence Or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism (1992).
- Cahoone, Lawrence, The Orders of Nature (2013).
- Clayton, Philip and Paul Davies, eds., The Re-emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion. Oxford University Press (2008).
- Gregersen Niels H., eds., From Complexity to Life: On Emergence of Life and Meaning. Oxford University Press (2013).
- Jones, Richard H., Analysis & the Fullness of Reality: An Introduction to Reductionism & Emergence. Jackson Square Books (2013).
- Laughlin, Robert B., A Different Universe (2005).
- MacDonald, Graham and Cynthia, Emergence in Mind. Oxford University Press (2010).
- McCarthy, Evan, "The Emergentist Theory of Truth" (2015).
- Morowitz, Harold J., The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex. Oxford University Press (2002).
External links
- Emergent Properties in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Emergentism in the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, 2007.
- Reduction and Emergence in Chemistry, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.