NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmYou're begging the question by presupposing the ontological possibility of emergent properties, especially as it is not true that they have actually been observed.
-This can't be possible. Emergent propertiy is just a Label we use on specific type of properties that owe their manifestation to a specific observable mechanism. IT is a classification term not an ontological claim! My take on subject (and science) and yours are in different ballparks!
Its a Description. i.e. two combustible gases when combine can produce a substance with fire extinguishing capabilities. Example=water.
Nothing in the above statement introduces any ontological presupposition. It is purely a descriptive narrative.
I've been talking about nothing else but ontological emergence!
Antiemergentists happily grant that there are higher, systemic levels of representation (conception, description) and predication. What they deny is that those levels corresponds to higher levels of existence or reality where ontologically emergent attributes (properties, powers) occur.
Ontological emergentism postulates a hierarchy of different and mutually irreducible levels or layers of being.
Unfortunately, that there is more than one concept of emergence is a source of confusion and misunderstanding. For example, what Carl Gillett calls "qualitative emergence" is perfectly compatible with the rejection of (what I call) ontological emergence.
QUOTE>
"Emergence, Qualitative – A property instance F is qualitatively emergent only if it is a property of a composed individual not had by any of the constituents of this individual."
(Gillett, Carl.
Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. p. 358)
"[C]onsider these three simple “rules” for future discussions about both emergence and also reduction:
First Rule: Remember that evidence for Qualitative emergence and/or scientific composition starts the fight over “emergence” and “reduction,” rather than finishing it.
Second Rule: Assume that there is no such thing as “the” concept of “emergence” or “reduction.”
Third Rule: Guard against using theoretically unarticulated assertions of “emergence” or “reduction” that are either vacuous or damaging or both."
(Gillett, Carl.
Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. p. 197)
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NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmNote that an emergent property of a whole or a system isn't any old property of it, but a novel simple, non-complex/non-structural property of it which is irreducibly different from any complex/structural property of it. An emergent property of a system (such as a molecule) depends on but isn't identical to any structural property of it.
-Sure...this is part of the definition of emergence, but why should I note that? I never claimed something different!
Good, so we're not talking past each other.
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmBy "antiemergentists" about properties I mean ontological reductionists about them; and there is nothing antiempirical about reductionism.
-My understanding is that "antiemergentists" use the inability to reduce or relate the emergent properties to their constituents parts as an argument in favor of their ideology. I didn't know that "antiemergentists" are also reductionists!!!
Sure the reductionistic approach (since I hate the arbitrary "creation " of isms as a way to make positions appear as equal ideologies) is a basic tool of science, one of many available methodologies. So it is empirical by default.
I use "(ontological) antiemergentism" and "ontological reductionism" synonymously. Another synonymous label is "(ontological) compositionalism", which refers to the same view that all higher-level (chemical, biological, psychological) entities are fundamentally composed of (and thus reducible to sums/fusions/combinations of) base-level physical entities.
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmHave the emergentists "met their burden" and demonstrated empirically that there are nonsimple objects or substances in nature which have emergent simple properties? – No, they haven't!
-The demonstration of the existence of objects and substances is a burden on those who make the claim.. Parsimony, Null Hypothesis, Burden of Proof and Default position ALL set the burden on the side MAKING the existential claim ...not on the side DESCRIBING a specific phenomenon and the Necessary and Sufficient conditions for it to "emerge"(to be observable and quantifiable).
If those objects and substances do not exist...how on earth one can ever prove a universal negative???
Anyway, the debate between emergentists and reductionists seems empirically underdetermined. But recall that I've presented an ontological
a priori argument against the possibility (and thereby against the existence) of emergent properties!
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmScience, particularly microphysics deals with unobservable entities too! Nobody has ever seen a quark.
-Well you are confusing "vision"(seeing) with Observation. Quarks are indirectly obsessed.(within Handrons). The same is true for quantum fluctuations and many other phenomena in Physics.
The difference between observing or even "assuming" elementary particles and entities with Advanced Properties is that the first group do not violate our Current Established Scientific Paradigm, while the second are in direct conflict with it and with everything we can observe test and verify
Okay, "observable" can be defined more or less broadly, depending on whether we're talking about
direct or
indirect observability, or about observability
by means of our natural senses alone or by means of our natural senses
plus artificial devices such as microscopes and telescopes.
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmAnyway, even in the case of observable entities, there is always an interplay between observation and theory. Theoretical science has ontological implications and presuppositions, the critical analysis and assessment of which is the job of ontologists.
-Not really true. Theories describe observations and concepts like quarks just explain measurable data. Such theoretical constructions do not bring science on its had and they are in absolute agreement with our measurements and observations.
Floating substances with advanced properties on the other hand....brings science to the Dark Ages.
What exactly do you mean by "floating substances with advanced properties"?
What exactly does it mean to say that quarks are "theoretical constructions"?
It sounds as if they haven't been discovered but invented by physicists? Or are they just convenient theoretical fictions?
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmOntology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions. Ontology and theoretical science can help one another along, we hope, with minimal harm.
(Martin, C. B. The Mind in Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. p. 42) "
-I don't know what you think these quotes can offer in this discussion. The truth is that Science is the best tool we have to verify our Ontological speculations, hypotheses and presuppositions. Look at atoms, Higgs Boson, the rainbow etc.
People get anxious when science doesn't verify their ontological assumptions...that is because their claims don't meet the scientific standards of verification.
It's a positivist-verificationist mistake to believe that scientific theories are ontology-free.
QUOTE>
"Ontological theses are assayed not by measuring them directly against reality, but by considering their relative power. One thesis bests another when it proves more adept at making sense of our experiences of the universe in light of our most promising scientific theories."
(Heil, John.
The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 97)
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NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pm
There is absolutely nothing antinaturalistic or antiscientific about antiemergentism/reductionism (about properties).
-Of course it is antiscientific, since it is in direct conflict with the established scientific paradigm of the last 500 years. If we include mind properties in the discussion then we project mind properties in to nature...so we are dealing with a supernatural ideology.
There are not any evidence that can support such ideas. They could be true but based on our current facts we need to dismiss them.
No, there's no "conflict with the established scientific paradigm of the last 500 years." On the contrary, reductionism and reductive explanations have been extremely successful in science, particularly in biology, where people have long believed in an irreducible life force (élan vital), and that living organisms are irreducible to purely physicochemical systems.
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmOn the contrary, if something seems "magical" or "spooky", it's ontological emergence, the appearance of ontologically irreducible simple properties of nonsimple objects
-What something seems to us is irrelevant. People couldn't wrap their minds around a spherical earth. Again that is an observer relative evaluation...not an intrinsic feature of the phenomenon.(argument from yuck). Again emergence is NOT an ontological claim but a descriptive based on our direct observations. A. we have volatile H and O b. when we combine them we can put out fires....that's all.
Obviously, claims to
ontological emergence are ontological claims!
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmAntiemergentists who are doing serious ontology are anything but "magical thinkers"!
-I can believe that. the problem is that they are doing ontology beyond our observations and that is a useless endeavor.
No, it's not! Ontology and metaphysics aren't themselves empirical disciplines, but there's a continuum between them and theoretical science; and there are more or less speculative or conjectural theories in science too (e.g. the theoretical interpretations of quantum mechanics) that go beyond observation sentences and those sentences which are deductively or inductively inferable from them.
By the way, "going
beyond our observations" isn't synonymous with "going
against our observations"!
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmThe ontological question is not whether nonsimple objects (can) have any properties at all—they can and do—, but whether the properties they have are ontologically reducible, resultant, nonsimple (composite/complex/structural) properties or ontologically irreducible, emergent, simple (noncomposite/noncomplex/nonstructural) properties.
-The correct question is Can simple objects produce advanced properties. Can fundamental elements of nature display advanced properties.
The answer is No. We don't observe properties other than kinetic. In order to observe advanced properties complex structures are needed.
Function and structure produce high level features. This is our current description of nature.
Any other question or belief is unfounded.
Emergenists and antiemergentists can
both acknowledge the existence of high-level features, but the point at issue between them is their ontological nature—see above!
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmConsul wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 2:38 pmMy (John Heil's) simple but (I think) very powerful argument against emergent properties is one against their very possibility and thereby also against their actuality, since nonpossibility entails nonactuality. I maintain that emergent properties are not coherently conceivable and comprehensible.
How this can qualify as an "powerful" argument when we don't have a way to evaluate its premises. I only hear "I can not believe that matter can be so "creative" so I will introduce entities in the background responsible for matter's abilities".
Humanity followed this way of thinking for thousands of years. Only after the scientific revolution and our current scientific paradigm our epistemology experienced an unprecedented run away success. Now you are demanding to take our philosophy and science back in the medieval era.
Rubbish! My point is that if we have no coherently intelligible concept or model of ontological emergence, then there is no (philosophical or scientific) justification for postulating ontologically emergent properties.
NickGaspar wrote: ↑July 13th, 2021, 4:18 pmThe emergent features which stand as criteria are the following.
Emerge from something else.
have some kind of autonomy over and above the things from which they emerge
posses a sertain kind of noverly
have some holistic aspect.
How can an emergent property be dependent on and determined by the structural property from which it emerges and yet "have some kind of autonomy"? For example, emergent properties qua emergent causal powers are said to be capable of "downward causation" in a system; but the very concept of emergent downward causation is of questionable coherence.