There is no strong emergence

[Pattern-chaser]

You can't seem to break free of complexity, can you? You write at considerable length, using words like "machretic"!, apparently with the intention of making the issue seem unmanageably — or 'unimaginably'? — complex.

Emergence is not that complex. It is interesting, and it is not trivial, but it doesn't require so many long words, or even as many words, as you care to employ. Knife-edge precision — if that is what it is? — is not worth that price, IMO.

Given the ambiguity of "emergence", it needs to be clarified & precisified first what we are talking about, so as not to talk past each other. Conceptual clarification & precisification are part and parcel of doing (analytic) philosophy.

In some cases, this is surely correct. But in other cases, a too-precise definition distracts from the discussion, and even derails it, when arguments emerge as to the exact count of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. For some, a simple "handful" is not enough, they need to know that the answer is 3.1415926 angels, exactly, before they can continue the discussion.

This kind of debate does not contribute to learning or understanding.

In this topic, "emergence" is not precisely-defined or -understood, like many other things (e.g. "consciousness" or "God"). There is a limit to how precisely we can define something we only partly understand. To attempt to go beyond that limit is unhelpful. If we need a better understanding before we start, then we need to pursue that understanding first and separately, before we consider the thing itself.

Over-use of precise definition is the death of many discussions, often intentionally so. Even though, as I said above, there are also cases where clarification is necessary before a discussion can continue. There is a Middle Path to follow here, I think, as there is in so many other such matters.

[Gertie]

This definition is correct only in the monist physicalist point of view. In substance dualism, the mind is the substance that experiences.


Yes, that is what they believe.


In substance dualism, the mind is the substance that experiences.


Yes, I agree.

OK.  So re the mind-body problem. 

It makes sense for physicalist substance monists to talk of strong emergence as a way of expressing the belief that phenomenal experience must somehow ontologically emerge from physical processes.  And here 'strong' signifies that the mechanism of emergence isn't currently explainable via the physicalist model.

Yes, I agree.

How then would a substance dualist see the ontological role of emergence?

Are you talking about the ontological emergence of mind? If yes, then the answer is that there is no emergence since the mind is one of the fundamental substances in substance dualism.

Right.

So lets consider  this  in ontological terms of what actually exists and is going on when we talk about the mind-body problem and emergence.

At the most basic system level, the universe-system, we can say fundamental stuff/substance exists as a brute fact (it has no explanation).  and is ontologically irreducible.  And when we talk about the properties of that fundamental substance  we're talking about  how it behaves/interacts. The properties of the universe-system are the parts of its fundamental substance(s) interacting. 

A substance monist would say everything can be explained in terms of the parts of the one fundamental substance interacting in different ways. This is what physicalism claims. In which case mind (phenomenal experience) is a property which manifests (emerges) when certain material parts interact in certain ways.  Like everything else we see in the universe.

But while physicalism can in principle explain pretty much all of these emergent properties in terms of ontological reduction (to fundamental forces acting on fundamental particles) it doesn't have an in principle way of reducing phenomenal experience in that way (according to its current model).  And this is what physicalist monists mean by strong emergence re the mind-body problem. That they can't yet explain it via their ontological model of what the world is made of and how it works. But assume there must be some such explanation.

Where-as the substance dualist position is that mind isn't ontologically reducible,  it too is a fundamental substance.

Now we can come up with all sorts of definitions of weak and strong emergence in different contexts (apparently lots of peeps do), but this is the way physicalists use the terms re the mind-body problem - 

In that context 'strong' emergence for physicalists means mind is ontologically reducible to physical stuff, it is an emergent  property of matter in motion, but is currently inexplicable according to the physicalist model.

I don't see how your OP counters that claim.

And here 'strong' [emergence] signifies that the mechanism of emergence isn't currently explainable via the physicalist model.

Yes, I agree.

I'm not good with 'schools' of philosophy, in this case, Physicalism. But I can't see the need for a more complicated explanation than the network one I have already offered. Some attributes of a network obviously stem from one or more of its nodes. [In the network, the nodes are what are often called the 'parts', and the network itself is the 'whole'.] But some, apparently, don't.

This is because the functionality of the attribute concerned is more dependent on the connections than others. A complex web of connections in a network can result in attributes or properties that do not obviously emerge from the nodes. And of course we can all recognise that the important word there is "obviously". Because the properties we are considering here are dependent on the nodes, just as they depend on the connections too, but when that dependency is more complex, it becomes much more difficult for us to spot. And so we say that our models don't account for the attribute, but that's only because our models overlook connections, I think.

If we consider how a network of cells (i.e. me) possesses the attribute of being able to write English, it is very difficult to see how the cells might manage that. That may be down to the abstract distance between language and cells being too great for us to span, or it may be what we call emergence. I'm not sure. But if it's the former, there are other similar examples where the cause is emergence.

Am I fooling myself? Have I focussed on an apparent solution that is too simple, and doesn't fit? Maybe so, but I can't see it. I remember that it isn't the millions (?) of neurons in our brains that account for their complexity, it's the incredibly dense web of connections.

Actually, it's the two together, for without both nodes and connections, there can be no network. But it's worth concentrating on the connections, because we humans commonly ignore or discard them, simplistically believing that the network can be understood as a bag of unconnected parts (nodes). It can't, of course.

This is a pretty straightforward wiki description of substance monism physicalism -

Physicalism encompasses: matter, but also energy, physical laws, space, time, structure, physical processes, information, state, and forces, among other things, as described by physics and other sciences, as part of the physical in a monistic sense. From a physicalist perspective, even abstract concepts such as mathematics, morality, consciousness, intentionality, and meaning are considered physical entities, although they may consist of a large ontological object and a causally complex structure. Nevertheless, they are still considered physical

Here's how I see it. You're right, when it comes to Philosophy of Mind, and the mind-body problem specifically, the notion of emergence is usually evoked by physicalists to explain how phenomenal experience is manifested by physical interactions - neural nodes/parts connectively interacting in a network.

There's a fair reason for this, because In nature we observe parts interact in different ways which manifest novel properties in a system. In fact physicalism claims everything is ontologically reducible to the fundamental physical parts interacting to create new properties, new systems, everything which exists. All in principle explainable by physics. There is nothing else.

In philosophy of mind physicalists generally use the term 'strong' emergence, to signify that physicalism has no known mechanism where-by phenomenal experience emerges. So if we look at the standard model, it doesn't have a place for phenomenal experience, physics as we currently understand it wouldn't predict it to emerge, and there's no known physicalist mechanism by which it can in principle ontologically reduce experience to neural interactions. For instance we can in principle give a full physicalist account of working brains and the digestive system, and neither would include experience, yet brains do. This is what's known as 'the explanatory gap'.

There might be such a mechanism which as you say has just been too difficult to spot, or there might be a new discovery which enables us to integrate consciousness into the physicalist model. But we don't know what that might be, or what to look for (except noting neural correlation in ever greater detail). So imo re the mind-body problem the term 'strong emergence' is a place-holder for a physicalist explanation which physicalists assume must exist.

Where-as substance dualists think experience is another fundamental substance, not ontologically reducible to physical processes/emergent from them.

[Consul]

In this topic, "emergence" is not precisely-defined or -understood, like many other things (e.g. "consciousness" or "God"). There is a limit to how precisely we can define something we only partly understand. To attempt to go beyond that limit is unhelpful. If we need a better understanding before we start, then we need to pursue that understanding first and separately, before we consider the thing itself.

Over-use of precise definition is the death of many discussions, often intentionally so. Even though, as I said above, there are also cases where clarification is necessary before a discussion can continue. There is a Middle Path to follow here, I think, as there is in so many other such matters.

Well, apart from the formal languages of logic and mathematics…

"We can never expect to make our words perfectly precise. For in order to make one word more precise, we must use other words that are themselves to some extent vague, and that vagueness will infect our clarifications. Vagueness can sometimes be reduced, but it can never be eliminated, from either language or thought. Efforts at clarification should be concentrated where there is a special need for it. The need may be either theoretical or practical."

(Williamson, Timothy. Doing Philosophy: From Common Curiosity to Logical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. p. 42)

To say that vagueness can never be eliminated is not to say that it can never be minimized.
In the case of emergentism, there is a special need for clarification…

"…for there are a plethora of distinct notions of emergence springing both from philosophical debates as well as the rich array of scientific usages. And I show that there are hidden battles even over how many tenable notions of emergence there actually are, and such disputes are masked by talk of “the” concept. We therefore need to be aware that the contested nature of various notions of emergence means there is a very tangled terminology. For example, the terms “Weak” and “Strong” are used in existing debates to refer to differing (and sometimes even incompatible) notions."

(Gillett, Carl. Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. p. 174)

See: Emergent Properties

Anyway, I have stated clearly what I mean by "emergent property": a compositionally simple, i.e. non-composite/non-complex, property of a compositionally nonsimple, i.e. composite/complex, object. This is the sort of ontologically emergent properties whose (actual&possible) existence I deny.

[Count Lucanor]

Not necessarily. As you can see in the provided definition of a system, it is surrounded and influenced by its environment. This is specially important for open systems, which are precisely the ones which tend to exhibit emergence.

Of course, you need a stimulus in order to have a response from a system. The behavior of the system however is the result of its properties and stimulus to be more precise.

But stimulus then operates as an external force outside the system, or, looking at it in another way, there are many systems interacting with each other in contingent, unpredictable ways.

The behavior of the systems is predictable unless one takes the free will into the consideration.

The behavior of the system is then not reducible to the properties of its elements.

The behavior of the system is reducible to the properties of its parts and the stimulus. That is true since the properties of the system are reducible to the properties of parts and the behavior of the system is the result of the properties of the system and the stimulus.

In all cases, however, systems work as such because their properties, processes, behaviors, etc., are a function of something else: their parts and other systems. And we can always see a system as a sub-system.

Yes.

The behavior of a system that interacts with other systems (both predictable and unpredictable) necessarily will be unpredictable. As the number of variables increases, as the interaction between systems becomes more complex, we are dealing with randomness, stochasticity. In the end your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

[Pattern-chaser]

...your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

This is probably the most significant and important — and correct! — observation about emergence that I have so far read in this topic.

[Consul]

...your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

This is probably the most significant and important — and correct! — observation about emergence that I have so far read in this topic.

There can be no ontologically reductionistic ontological emergentism!

[Pattern-chaser]

...your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

This is probably the most significant and important — and correct! — observation about emergence that I have so far read in this topic.

There can be no ontologically reductionistic ontological emergentism!

...and in English? [American is an acceptable alternative... ]

[Bahman]

This definition is correct only in the monist physicalist point of view. In substance dualism, the mind is the substance that experiences.


Yes, that is what they believe.


In substance dualism, the mind is the substance that experiences.


Yes, I agree.

OK.  So re the mind-body problem. 

It makes sense for physicalist substance monists to talk of strong emergence as a way of expressing the belief that phenomenal experience must somehow ontologically emerge from physical processes.  And here 'strong' signifies that the mechanism of emergence isn't currently explainable via the physicalist model.

Yes, I agree.

How then would a substance dualist see the ontological role of emergence?

Are you talking about the ontological emergence of mind? If yes, then the answer is that there is no emergence since the mind is one of the fundamental substances in substance dualism.

Right.

So lets consider  this  in ontological terms of what actually exists and is going on when we talk about the mind-body problem and emergence.

At the most basic system level, the universe-system, we can say fundamental stuff/substance exists as a brute fact (it has no explanation).  and is ontologically irreducible.  And when we talk about the properties of that fundamental substance  we're talking about  how it behaves/interacts.

Correct.

The properties of the universe-system are the parts of its fundamental substance(s) interacting. 

What do you mean?

A substance monist would say everything can be explained in terms of the parts of the one fundamental substance interacting in different ways. This is what physicalism claims. In which case mind (phenomenal experience) is a property which manifests (emerges) when certain material parts interact in certain ways.  Like everything else we see in the universe.

Correct.

But while physicalism can in principle explain pretty much all of these emergent properties in terms of ontological reduction (to fundamental forces acting on fundamental particles) it doesn't have an in principle way of reducing phenomenal experience in that way (according to its current model).

Correct.

And this is what physicalist monists mean by strong emergence re the mind-body problem.

That is the hard problem of consciousness. The mind-body problem refers to another problem that how the mind can interact with the body.

That they can't yet explain it via their ontological model of what the world is made of and how it works. But assume there must be some such explanation.

Correct.

Where-as the substance dualist position is that mind isn't ontologically reducible,  it too is a fundamental substance.

Correct.

Now we can come up with all sorts of definitions of weak and strong emergence in different contexts (apparently lots of peeps do), but this is the way physicalists use the terms re the mind-body problem - 

Again, that is the hard problem of consciousness.

In that context 'strong' emergence for physicalists means mind is ontologically reducible to physical stuff, it is an emergent  property of matter in motion, but is currently inexplicable according to the physicalist model.

What physicalists call strong emergence refers to a phenomenon that is irreducible to physical stuff.

I don't see how your OP counters that claim.

I claim that strong emergence is not possible since the property of any system is a function of the properties of parts.

[Bahman]

Of course, you need a stimulus in order to have a response from a system. The behavior of the system however is the result of its properties and stimulus to be more precise.

But stimulus then operates as an external force outside the system, or, looking at it in another way, there are many systems interacting with each other in contingent, unpredictable ways.

The behavior of the systems is predictable unless one takes the free will into the consideration.

The behavior of the system is then not reducible to the properties of its elements.

The behavior of the system is reducible to the properties of its parts and the stimulus. That is true since the properties of the system are reducible to the properties of parts and the behavior of the system is the result of the properties of the system and the stimulus.

In all cases, however, systems work as such because their properties, processes, behaviors, etc., are a function of something else: their parts and other systems. And we can always see a system as a sub-system.

Yes.

The behavior of a system that interacts with other systems (both predictable and unpredictable) necessarily will be unpredictable. As the number of variables increases, as the interaction between systems becomes more complex, we are dealing with randomness, stochasticity.

There is no such thing as randomness and stochasticity unless one considers free will into consideration.

In the end your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

No, that is not correct. I consider both strong and weak emergence and showed that strong emergence is not possible.

[Count Lucanor]

There is no such thing as randomness and stochasticity unless one considers free will into consideration.

Randomness and stochasticity have been present in the universe without the need of coexistence with conscious beings.

In the end your conception of emergentism is reductionist, which is exactly the opposite of what emergence is.

No, that is not correct. I consider both strong and weak emergence and showed that strong emergence is not possible.

Actually, considering what has been discussed, the case for the distinction between strong and weak emergence is very weak. There’s nothing useful in it. It’s like making the case for weak and strong pregnancy. Who cares, one is either pregnant or not, and the rest are just arbitrary categorizations.

[Consul]

Actually, considering what has been discussed, the case for the distinction between strong and weak emergence is very weak. There’s nothing useful in it. It’s like making the case for weak and strong pregnancy. Who cares, one is either pregnant or not, and the rest are just arbitrary categorizations.

How perspicuous the distinction between strong and weak emergence is depends on how it is defined—particularly on whether it is regarded as a distinction between two ontological standpoints, or as a distinction between an ontological standpoint and an epistemological one.

[Consul]

QUOTE>
"Emergence is often described in terms of the slogan ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’. We assemble a model building from building blocks. If we understand the properties of the building blocks, then we might expect that the finished building possesses properties that are understandable from the things we know about the blocks and how they fit together. However, if it turns out that the building has some new feature that does not follow from what we know about the blocks, then that feature might be called emergent. Many things are at stake when asking questions about emergence. Do we believe that there are barriers to deriving the laws governing complex systems? Do we think that there is more to complex systems than simply the complication of their large size? Do we believe that the mind is only the result of a collection of biological circuitry, or is it something more or different?…

To claim that a thing is emergent involves asserting something about the relationship between that thing and its more fundamental parts. For instance, although a thing is dependent on its parts (that is, it could not exist without them), it is also novel with respect to them; it is something new and distinct. As we will see, exactly how we should elaborate on such claims is a matter of much debate. Another way of describing emergence is as a failure of reduction. Reduction implies that some relatively complex phenomenon can be explained in terms of some simpler phenomenon. New fields of knowledge seem to specify how high-level entities are composed. A reductionist might argue that since high-level entities like molecules are made of more fundamental particles governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, then chemistry should be reducible to quantum mechanics. In contrast to this, the emergentist might hold that an appeal to lower-level phenomena will be inadequate since some phenomena cannot be explained by reduction. The challenge for supporters of emergence is to make clear what is added as we move up through these levels of reality and in what way higher-level phenomena do not merely result from the interactions of lower-level entities.

Not all descriptions of emergence are the same. One way of dividing emergence is between those phenomena that emerge because of the way we represent or gain knowledge about the world (epistemic emergence) versus the emergence of genuinely existing new entities (for example, objects or properties) or new kinds of causes (ontological emergence). Epistemic emergence is relatively uncontroversial: we often accept that it is convenient to represent the world in certain ways, but also that the most convenient representation might involve fictional entities. Ontological emergence is different and implies that the higher level will contain entities that are just as real[2]as those found at the lower level. Their reality might manifest itself by the higher level being able to act downwards to affect the lower level. Of course, one might also object to talk of levels altogether, and instead choose to frame the discussion in terms of emergence occurring at different scales or at different levels of abstraction. Another way of dividing up the subject is into strong and weak emergence. Sometimes this division aligns with the distinction between epistemic and ontological emergence so that strong emergence implies that emergent entities exist, and weak emergence implies that emergent entities arise from the way we gain knowledge and represent it. However, strong and weak emergence can also be thought of as categories that can sub-divide epistemic and ontological emergence themselves.

Emergence, then, is a way of characterising relationships between complex entities and their parts, relationships between the sciences and the place of life and mind in the physical world. In the last ten years it has once again become a major focus of interest among scientists and philosophers, but it remains the subject of entrenched disagreements over several issues. First, emergentists and reductionists disagree on whether composite objects can have properties and behaviour that go beyond those of their basic constituents. Second, they typically disagree over whether advances in science support emergence or reduction. Emergentists see science as revealing the complexity of the world and the diversity of its laws. Reductionists see science as undermining emergence by failing to uncover clear examples, thus supporting a reductionist view of the world in which there is unity underlying the apparent complexity: just a few kinds of things, governed by a few simple laws, which provide the ultimate basis for everything that happens."

(Hendry, Robin Findlay, Sophie Gibb, and Tom Lancaster. Introduction to The Routledge Handbook of Emergence, edited by Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry and Tom Lancaster, 1-19. New York: Routledge, 2019. pp. 1-2)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

How perspicuous the distinction between strong and weak emergence is depends on how it is defined—particularly on whether it is regarded as a distinction between two ontological standpoints, or as a distinction between an ontological standpoint and an epistemological one.

An addition: …particularly on whether it is regarded as a distinction between two ontological standpoints, two epistemological standpoints, or as a distinction between an ontological standpoint and an epistemological one.

QUOTE>
"…Another way of dividing up the subject is into strong and weak emergence. Sometimes this division aligns with the distinction between epistemic and ontological emergence so that strong emergence implies that emergent entities exist, and weak emergence implies that emergent entities arise from the way we gain knowledge and represent it. However, strong and weak emergence can also be thought of as categories that can sub-divide epistemic and ontological emergence themselves."

(Hendry, Robin Findlay, Sophie Gibb, and Tom Lancaster. Introduction to The Routledge Handbook of Emergence, edited by Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry and Tom Lancaster, 1-19. New York: Routledge, 2019. p. 2)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

In this topic, "emergence" is not precisely-defined or -understood, like many other things (e.g. "consciousness" or "God"). There is a limit to how precisely we can define something we only partly understand. To attempt to go beyond that limit is unhelpful. If we need a better understanding before we start, then we need to pursue that understanding first and separately, before we consider the thing itself.

Over-use of precise definition is the death of many discussions, often intentionally so. Even though, as I said above, there are also cases where clarification is necessary before a discussion can continue. There is a Middle Path to follow here, I think, as there is in so many other such matters.

QUOTE>
"The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and a number of sciences in the past couple decades. Yet debates between emergentist and reductionist accounts of specific phenomena, and of visions of the natural world generally, continue to be hampered by imprecision or outright ambiguity in the use of terms."

(Corradini, Antonella, and Timothy O'Connor, eds. Emergence in Science and Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2010. p. xi)
<QUOTE

So here "clarification is necessary before a discussion can continue"!

[The Beast]

It is obvious that monists and dualists consider substance to be the same and it is in its essence that the differences are encountered. What is in the essence of changing? The substance of humans which is found in nature follows essential rules that are different as changing properties. Some monists would catalogue the latter as monism and some dualists as dualism. It is at the extremes where we find the opposites. What is the law? If we move within the law, then we go towards the strong emergence and if not, we move towards an opinion or weak emergence. Weak and strong are relative to the will (individual and collective). At its most basic level: Is the essence of alive different than inert? If so, then there is emergence. If going from physical to metaphysical (as in energy) properties to deny emergence is physicalism, then what’s in the name? Is there a change? It is the emergence of the new Physicalism.