Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 19th, 2021, 5:27 pm "What must first be done, I think, to deal with this problem is to take states of affairs as the fundamental structures in reality. They are primary, particulars and universals secondary. I mean by this that states of affairs are the least thing that can have independent existence. Unpropertied particulars and uninstantiated universals are false abstractions, meaning that they are incapable of independent existence."

(Armstrong, D. M. Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 27)
That's completely incoherent crap.

You can't have states of affairs without particulars, and the notion of "unpropertied particulars" is just gibberish.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 19th, 2021, 6:47 pm
Sy Borg wrote: July 19th, 2021, 5:49 pm
Consul wrote: July 19th, 2021, 1:44 pmEvolutionary novelty comes with increasingly complex novel structures, with new arrangements, configurations, organizations, or systematizations of (large numbers of) elementary particles.
That seems tautologous to me, basically saying that novelty comes from new things.
My statement isn't tautologous, because what I mean to say is that evolutionary novelty comes from new arrangements of old basic things, viz. elementary particles and forces, rather than from the emergence of new basic things, i.e. new things which are ontologically irreducible to arrangements of old basic things.
Ok, I understand.

I wonder what reality would look like if new things emerged, and not just configurations? Imagine that around 3.8b years ago a non-living glob of ordinary chemicals suddenly started metabolising and/or reproducing.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Sy Borg wrote: July 19th, 2021, 10:13 pmI wonder what reality would look like if new things emerged, and not just configurations? Imagine that around 3.8b years ago a non-living glob of ordinary chemicals suddenly started metabolising and/or reproducing.
John Heil regards particle creation as a case of substance(+property) emergence:

QUOTE>
"Emergent properties must be fundamental and so must their bearers. But now the way is open to see emergence as a straightforward, uncontroversial natural phenomenon. (...) Focus on the fundamental things, or what physicists currently regard as the fundamental things. Do these ever emerge? Consider an imaginary case in which a new kind of particle is produced in a collider. When an alpha-particle encounters a beta-particle, the upshot is the annihilation of the alpha- and beta-particles, and the creation of a new kind of particle, a gamma-particle, possessing properties emergent with respect to alpha- and beta-particles. This is genuine, for-real, honest emergence! The set-up required to produce the particle is complex; it includes the collider and a host of supporting mechanisms. But the gamma-particle does not mysteriously inform this complex. The particle, propertied as it is, emerges from a collision between alpha- and beta-particles facilitated by the complex."

(Heil, John. The Universe As We Find It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 30)
<QUOTE

And there is William Hasker, who believes that minds are mental substances emerging from physical substances (bodies):

QUOTE>
"[C]onsider the following possibility: an animal or human brain consists of ordinary atoms and molecules, which are subject to the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. But suppose that, given the particular arrangements of these atoms and molecules of the brain, new laws, new systems of interaction between the atoms, etc., come into play. These new laws, furthermore, play an essential role in such characteristic mental activities as rational thought and decision-making. The new laws, however, are not detectable in any simpler configuration; in such configurations the behavior of the atoms and molecules is adequately explained by the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. These, then, are emergent laws, and the powers that the brain has in virtue of the emergent laws may be termed emergent causal powers. Given this much, it is clear that to postulate the existence of emergent causal powers is to make a dramatic, and in fact extremely controversial, metaphysical claim. Many philosophers and scientists strongly resist such a claim, pointing to the immense explanatory success of standard physico-chemical explanations in accounting for a broad range of phenomena. Nevertheless, a number of philosophers have felt compelled to assert the existence of emergent causal powers; they hold that crucially important facts about our mental lives cannot be explained in any other way.

Suppose, finally, that as a result of the structure and functioning of the brain, there appear not merely new modes of behavior of the fundamental constituents (as in the case of emergent causal powers), but also a new entity, the mind, which does not consist of atoms and molecules, or of any other physical constituents. If this were the case, we would have an emergent individual, an individual that comes into existence as the result of a certain configuration of the brain and nervous system, but which is not composed of the matter which makes up that physical system. This, clearly enough, represents yet a further stage of emergence, one that is resisted even by some of those philosophers who acknowledge emergent causal powers. Such an emergence theory would be, in fact, a variety of dualism, in that the emergent mind is an entity not composed of physical stuff. But it would be an emergent dualism, unlike traditional dualisms which postulate a special divine act of creation as the origin of the soul. …

Having set the stage by this account of emergence, it is time to present the resulting view of the person. The fundamental idea is actually rather simple. As a consequence of a certain configuration and function of the brain and nervous system, a new entity comes into being—namely, the mind or soul. This new thing is not merely a 'configurational state' of the cells of the brain (as, for example, a crystal is a configurational state of the molecules that make it up). The mind, in this view, is a 'thing in itself'; it is what some philosophers call a 'substance.' It isn't made of the chemical stuff of which the brain is composed, though it crucially depends on that chemical stuff for both its origin and continuance. It is this mind—the conscious self—that thinks, and reasons, and feels emotions, and makes decisions; it is the central core of what we mean by a 'person.'"

(Hasker, William. "Souls Beastly and Human." In The Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the Soul, edited by Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz, 202-217. New York: Continuum, 2011. pp. 213-15)
<QUOTE
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Both Heil and Hasker argue that only simple emergent substances can have strongly emergent properties:

QUOTE>
"[O]ne can argue that strong emergentism, at least with respect to some or all mental states, in fact requires a form of substance dualism. On a biological view of emergent thinkers, the micro-physical boundaries of such thinkers may inevitably be vague, for empirical reasons. But it is perhaps doubtful that fundamental causal laws associated with strongly emergent properties would reference vague conditions. The sole apparent alternative is that the properties are instantiated in a distinct, non-vague object instead, as a non-physical mind would be."

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

"William Hasker (1999) goes one step further in arguing for the existence of the mind conceived as a non-composite substance which ‘emerges’ from the brain at a certain point in its development."

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum ... -emergent/

"What emerges…is not merely mental properties and experiences, and not merely new causal powers, but a new individual, a subject that has those experiences and exercises the causal powers in question. This new individual is not composed of the elementary particles of physics; rather, the new individual is an emergent immaterial entity, an 'emergent self' which as an undivided whole undergoes conscious experiences of various kinds, acquires knowledge of itself and the world in which it lives, and carries out actions which serve (or are intended to serve) its ends and desires. By now this new individual is beginning to sound quite a bit like the soul posited by creationist versions of dualism; there are, however, some important differences. The emergent self is generated by the organic body through a natural process, rather than being inserted into the body from outside. It is also sustained in its continuing existence by the body and brain, and both its powers and its activities are intimately related to and dependent on the condition and functioning of the brain. And unlike most versions of creationist dualism, the emergent self is located in space: it exists in the region occupied by the brain and nervous system by which it is generated. Nevertheless, in spite of these differences the postulation of such a soul makes this view a version of dualism; indeed, of substance dualism and not of mere property dualism. Hence the name given to the view: emergent dualism (Hasker 1999 [The Emergent Self], 171–203)."

(Hasker, William. "The Case for Emergent Dualism." In The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, edited by Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, and J. P. Moreland, 62-72. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018. p. 67)
<QUOTE
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 7:56 am
You should stop quoting all of this stuff if we can't get into extended discussions about it.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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By the way, I only commented on the Armstrong crap you quoted but would never discuss, but this response:

"No, it's most certainly not, because a distance relation between a and b is not itself an extended thing with a length corresponding to the distance between a and b. Generally, relations are quite unlike cables, strings, or wires between things, which are all material 3D things themselves! Whatever is literally between two things in space, it's not a spatial or any other kind of relation."

Is just as much nonsense. A distance relation is exactly extension corresponding to the distance between a and b, and it's exactly spatial. That's what the distance relation is.

If your comment is rather hinging on some unspecified "technical" usage of the term "thing," specify the usage you're employing.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 19th, 2021, 7:04 pm
Consul wrote: July 19th, 2021, 5:27 pm "What must first be done, I think, to deal with this problem is to take states of affairs as the fundamental structures in reality. They are primary, particulars and universals secondary. I mean by this that states of affairs are the least thing that can have independent existence. Unpropertied particulars and uninstantiated universals are false abstractions, meaning that they are incapable of independent existence."

(Armstrong, D. M. Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 27)
That's completely incoherent crap.
You can't have states of affairs without particulars, and the notion of "unpropertied particulars" is just gibberish.
I thought you'd agree with what Armstrong writes. By "particulars" he means individual objects or substances, and he too thinks that "you can't have [first-order] states of affairs without particulars." (Higher-order states of affairs don't contain particulars but only first-order and higher-order universals.) He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars. So what's "incoherent crap" here?!
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:46 pm …He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars.…
Spelling mistake: should read "unpropertied particulars"!
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:16 pm By the way, I only commented on the Armstrong crap you quoted but would never discuss, but this response:

"No, it's most certainly not, because a distance relation between a and b is not itself an extended thing with a length corresponding to the distance between a and b. Generally, relations are quite unlike cables, strings, or wires between things, which are all material 3D things themselves! Whatever is literally between two things in space, it's not a spatial or any other kind of relation."

Is just as much nonsense. A distance relation is exactly extension corresponding to the distance between a and b, and it's exactly spatial. That's what the distance relation is.

If your comment is rather hinging on some unspecified "technical" usage of the term "thing," specify the usage you're employing.
No, it isn't.
For instance, if there is a spatial distance of 1m between two material objects A and B, then the distance relation itself is not an extended entity with a length of 1m. If there is something that is literally between A and B, then it's either a region of space with a diameter of 1m or a material object with a diameter of 1m which occupies that region of space.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:46 pm I thought you'd agree with what Armstrong writes. By "particulars" he means individual objects or substances, and he too thinks that "you can't have [first-order] states of affairs without particulars." (Higher-order states of affairs don't contain particulars but only first-order and higher-order universals.) He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars. So what's "incoherent crap" here?!
So first, no real (extramental) universals exist. No real abstracts exist. Universals, as mental phenomena, actually ARE particulars--it's just that the "content" of them is an abstraction--the universal in question. Only particulars exist. Ontologically, there are no states of affairs, period, sans particulars.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 3:03 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:16 pm By the way, I only commented on the Armstrong crap you quoted but would never discuss, but this response:

"No, it's most certainly not, because a distance relation between a and b is not itself an extended thing with a length corresponding to the distance between a and b. Generally, relations are quite unlike cables, strings, or wires between things, which are all material 3D things themselves! Whatever is literally between two things in space, it's not a spatial or any other kind of relation."

Is just as much nonsense. A distance relation is exactly extension corresponding to the distance between a and b, and it's exactly spatial. That's what the distance relation is.

If your comment is rather hinging on some unspecified "technical" usage of the term "thing," specify the usage you're employing.
No, it isn't.
For instance, if there is a spatial distance of 1m between two material objects A and B, then the distance relation itself is not an extended entity with a length of 1m. If there is something that is literally between A and B, then it's either a region of space with a diameter of 1m or a material object with a diameter of 1m which occupies that region of space.
Space is IDENTICAL to the extension of matter and the extensional relations of matter. Space isn't something other than that. Re "entity" that's as mysterious there as "thing" if you're using it in some "technical" way. The extension exists as an extensional relation (which again is IDENTICAL to what space is).
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 5:39 pm
Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:46 pm I thought you'd agree with what Armstrong writes. By "particulars" he means individual objects or substances, and he too thinks that "you can't have [first-order] states of affairs without particulars." (Higher-order states of affairs don't contain particulars but only first-order and higher-order universals.) He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars. So what's "incoherent crap" here?!
So first, no real (extramental) universals exist. No real abstracts exist. Universals, as mental phenomena, actually ARE particulars--it's just that the "content" of them is an abstraction--the universal in question. Only particulars exist. Ontologically, there are no states of affairs, period, sans particulars.
In the Terry Pratchett novel, The Thief of Time, the Auditors of Reality break the Mona Lisa to its component atoms to better understand why it was considered special. Of course, all they ended up with was a small pile of chemicals. Those chemicals - those particulars - always existed, but so did their "state of affairs". The molecules' "states of affairs" changed when the Auditors disassembled the chemicals.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Sy Borg wrote: July 20th, 2021, 7:17 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 5:39 pm
Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:46 pm I thought you'd agree with what Armstrong writes. By "particulars" he means individual objects or substances, and he too thinks that "you can't have [first-order] states of affairs without particulars." (Higher-order states of affairs don't contain particulars but only first-order and higher-order universals.) He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars. So what's "incoherent crap" here?!
So first, no real (extramental) universals exist. No real abstracts exist. Universals, as mental phenomena, actually ARE particulars--it's just that the "content" of them is an abstraction--the universal in question. Only particulars exist. Ontologically, there are no states of affairs, period, sans particulars.
In the Terry Pratchett novel, The Thief of Time, the Auditors of Reality break the Mona Lisa to its component atoms to better understand why it was considered special. Of course, all they ended up with was a small pile of chemicals. Those chemicals - those particulars - always existed, but so did their "state of affairs". The molecules' "states of affairs" changed when the Auditors disassembled the chemicals.
Right, every difference of matter, relations of matter and processes of matter is a different state of affairs.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 5:39 pm
Consul wrote: July 20th, 2021, 2:46 pm I thought you'd agree with what Armstrong writes. By "particulars" he means individual objects or substances, and he too thinks that "you can't have [first-order] states of affairs without particulars." (Higher-order states of affairs don't contain particulars but only first-order and higher-order universals.) He also thinks that there are no unproperties particulars. So what's "incoherent crap" here?!
So first, no real (extramental) universals exist. No real abstracts exist. Universals, as mental phenomena, actually ARE particulars--it's just that the "content" of them is an abstraction--the universal in question. Only particulars exist. Ontologically, there are no states of affairs, period, sans particulars.
States of affairs are particulars too. Anyway, no matter whether properties are universals or particulars (I already said I think they're particulars), the central point is that there are neither propertyless objects nor objectless properties. And when Amstrong calls these "false abstractions", he doesn't mean to say that they are abstract in the platonistic sense, but that talking about them separately means abstracting from the circumstance that objects and properties are interdependent and always coexist as parts of states of affairs or facts.
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Re: Ontological Emergence

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Terrapin Station wrote: July 20th, 2021, 5:39 pmSo first, no real (extramental) universals exist. No real abstracts exist. Universals, as mental phenomena, actually ARE particulars--it's just that the "content" of them is an abstraction--the universal in question. Only particulars exist. Ontologically, there are no states of affairs, period, sans particulars.
Universals in Plato's, Aristotle's, and Armstrong's sense aren't concepts or ideas in people's minds. Like those three guys, I'm a realist about properties, and I don't equate them with mental concepts or ideas. But, unlike those three guys, I agree with you that "only particulars exist"; so the properties I acknowledge are particulars rather than universals. I also acknowledge states of affairs or facts, which are particulars too.
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