Hi Mark, I doubt Pirsig has (other can correct me), but it was a Pirsig scholar that previously put me onto this Alexander view of emergence through levels of complexity - now well established as evolutionary theory.
Nothing new under the sun ... except for "emergent qualities" ... I like that ;-) Regards Ian On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 7:40 AM, markhsmit <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > I was caught up in the concept of emergence, so I turned to the > Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu). > I got stuck reading about British Emergentism. This has probably > already been discussed before in this forum because it appears to > be similar to MoQ, in some ways. Take the following two summary > paragraphs (some parts removed): > > 1.4 Summary of British Emergentism > > Let us sum up our discussion of the British Emergentists. Common to all these > theorists is a layered view of nature. The world is divided into discrete > strata, with fundamental physics as the base level, followed by chemistry, > biology, and psychology (and possibly sociology). To each level corresponds a > special science, and the levels are arranged in terms of increasing > organizational complexity of matter, the bottom level being the limiting case > investigated by the fundamental science of physics. > > Crucial to an account of emergence, however, is a view concerning > the relationship of such levels. On this score, we find that there are, in > fact, two rather different pictures of emergence, one represented by Mill and > Broad, and the other represented by Alexander. For Mill and Broad, emergence > involves the appearance of primitive high-level causal interactions that are > additional to those of the more fundamental levels. Alexander, by contrast, > is committed only to the appearance of novel qualities and associated, > high-level causal patterns which cannot be directly expressed in terms of the > more fundamental entities and principles. But these patterns do not > supplement, much less supersede, the fundamental interactions. Rather, they > are macroscopic patterns running through those very microscopic interactions. > Emergent qualities are something truly new under the sun, but the world's > fundamental dynamics remain unchanged. > > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ > > Does Pirsig discuss this philosophy? > > Mark > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
