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Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> any phenomena that we all agreed were cases of emergence. I began to think
> we might fail in this way when one of us objected to the example of
> Hydrogen, Oxygen making water, which seemed to me about as emergent as
> something could get. At that point, we would still not be skunked, because
Was that conversation on this list? I'd like to go back and read it. A
Gmane search turned up nothing.
It's odd that one would think of water as emerging from hydrogen and
oxygen. A question for those who believe that is: "Then does that make
all molecules emergent?" There are plenty of complicated processes that
go into the construction of any molecule, many of those are more
complicated than water.
I suspect the question above will seem to miss the point with many
Emergentists (Emergentites? Emergencies? ... hmmm). The point being
that emergence and perception are intertwined. Water is perceived in a
very different way than masses of hydrogen or oxygen are perceived by
humans. Many people who try to categorize "emergence" will attribute
this to some fundamental role of human expectations. But, I suspect a
worm, ant, or tree (were we able to communicate with them) would also
grok the difference between water and hydrogen, even without our
neocortex. This leads many others who like to categorize "emergence" to
talk of physical states of matter. Water, in massive aggregation, acts
one way. Water, in isolated molecules, acts another. Hence "emergence"
is defined in terms of some sort of composition operator (e.g. summation).
In the end, it all boils down to whether or not a thing ("water" can be
a thing) acts or is acted upon as a unit, distinct from the actions (or
reactions) of the things around it or its constituents (water
molecules). Likewise, the water molecule acts different from the other
molecules around it and from its constituents. So, when considering
water, there are at least two levels of emergence.
But, so what? Taken this way _everything_ is emergent. I even heard a
guy named Terry Bristol claim that the universe is a kind of emergent
cycle where the emergent things at the bottom emerge from the emergent
things at the top in a kind of ourboros. And that makes the word
"emergent" completely useless.
- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
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