I read part 2 before part 1, but it worked out ok. Perhaps it's my simplicity at work. I'll read the long Emergence article sometime soon, but maybe it won't conflict with my understanding.
Given no known boundary to reality, Occam's Razor tells me that infinity is the simplistic assumption. Big bangs require energy-matter to bang, however compressed. Cosmologist Royal and past Pres. of The Royal Society Martin Rees in _Our Final Century_ ('93) holds infinite multiverses like soap bubbles popping into and out of existence. Quantum or macro, causation is at work, but with infinite opportunity, whatever *IS* must be someplace-time. We find bits in the here-now, and via tools looking back in our universe's history. It is our limited perception and ignorance of infinite unknowns which drives teleological inventions.
I was directed yesterday to Wolfram's talk(The Big Think) about Computation trumping physics as the basis for reality. I'm skeptical that's a form of dematerialization or idealism. My short synopsis concludes: Emergence, in my view, is an argument from ignorance of not knowing all of the potentially infinite causes. I may be all wet, or frozen or...!
Steven, I too am skeptical of any kind of "computation / math will trump physics as the basis for reality." It is, indeed, idealism, of the Platonic / Pythagorean kind. Years ago I saw a talk at CUNY's Graduate Center by mathematician Max Tegmark, author of "Our Mathematical Universe." It must have been the first time he gave the talk in front of a potentially critical audience of philosophers. During a brutal hour of q&a he was absolutely bombarded by logicians, epistemologists, metaphysicians, and philosophers of science. He clearly had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Massimo, I was surprised to learn recently that the physicist and philosopher Tim Maudlin does not consider himself a materialist. He believes that mathematics constitutes a domain of reality that is not physical. Math is simply a brute fact of the universe that is mind independent — I suppose its mathematical realism he is endorsing. I guess you don’t agree but can you explain how you think about math?
Daniel, I too have flirted with mathematical Platonism (or, more precisely, Pythagoreanism), because there are pretty strong arguments in its favor in the philosophy of mathematics (and logic).
In the end, however, I am convinced by the constructivist case, put forth for instance by physicist Lee Smolin: math and logic are tools we invented and keep changing in order to help us with our problems. Initially they were both concerned with straightforward empirical applications and then they got more complex. I should probably write a full post on this, but here are two analogies that convinced me:
i) Chess. I suppose a strong Platonist would say that even chess exists in a mind-independent fashion, but if we agree that it's a game invented by human beings, with arbitrary rules, it's interesting to note that one can "discover" fascinating theorems about the game, which can be proven rigorously, just like in math.
ii) Borges's library. In a short shorty, Jorge Luis Borges described a library containing all the possible books or a given size/length written using the English alphabet. Most of them are gibberish. Some of them are tantalizing but incorrect descriptions of reality, and one -- just one -- describes all of reality exactly. This to me is a good model to think about what is often called the "unreasonable" effectiveness of math. There's nothing unreasonable about, it is expected. People forget that though it's true that math is incredibly useful to science, the overwhelming majority of mathematical objects don't have any correspondence to reality, and an infinite number of axioms lead immediately to incoherence. Just like most of the books in Borges's library.
I really like Sean Carroll on emergence. His book will come out next year on the topic. He keeps saying "we aren't LaPlace's demon". By which I take him to mean that aspirations to fully ground our description of the world, and to have every category of description be translatable to every other are most likely futile. So emergence means there really is no better way to understand, say, temperature, center of mass, consciousness, love and poetry, than on those levels. As I like to say, you can't find your car keys with an electron microscope. Car keys don't exist on that level.
Snake, indeed. That's another expect of the problem: do we mean emergence in an ontological or an epistemic sense? At this moment I don't believe in ontological strong emergence, though I'm open to be shown otherwise. But epistemic emergence, meaning that various phenomena are best understood and described at different levels of complexity, to me in the only way to go. I like your example of the key, I might "borrow" it...
Strong emergence has the taste of a miraculous occurrence, or alchemy. I can't quite wrap my head around it, but I do have much to learn. Is the hard problem of consciousness ever explained as strong emergence? Does that even make sense?
Henry, yes, some people have suggested that consciousness is one example of strong emergence. But as you say, it smells a lot like magic, so it doesn't really explain anything. Not unless people will come up with the mechanisms and laws that make strong emergence possible. As far as I know they have no clue.
I have always thought of emergence as a property about which we do not yet have sufficient understanding. We may be able to replicate outcomes, but still not know exactly why. We currently think that quantum mechanics is probability based. But that view may be based on insufficient information. As we learn new things about the universe we come face to face with how much more we don’t know. What we call emergence beautifully highlights this condition. Viva la determinism, materialism, and reductionism.
This reminds me of a character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series who studies “future history”. With enough information he is able to calculate future events.
Paul, there are two types of emergence: supervenient (or "weak") and "strong." Weak emergence is trivial: it simply says that in order to change the value / appearance of any higher order phenomena there needs to be a change in the value / appearance of lower level phenomena. Entirely well documented and uncontroversial.
The question is whether there is any documented case of true, or strong emergence, whereby the complexity of a system somehow (note the vagueness) triggers the coming into existence of new laws that regulate the corresponding level of complexity. I used to be optimistic about the discovery of cases of true emergence, but I'm now far less so.
Enjoyed the article though I’m not quite grasping the bit about emergentism and water. What I remember from high school is that in different states the molecules are at different distances from one another: far apart in water vapor, less so in liquid form, and crammed tightly in ice.
So wouldn’t the “emergence” of these various states be a function of the space between the molecules? Or is the question more about getting into the mechanical details of how pressure and temperature cause changes in these distances?
Jim, your recollection is correct. The actual problem is that -- at the moment -- there is no way to predict on the basis of the underlying physics (i.e., quantum statistics) at what temperature / pressure each transition will take place, and of course there is even less of way to explain why it takes a certain number of molecules to produce the characteristic of "wetness" typical of water. (Individual molecules, obviously, are not wet or dry.)
I read part 2 before part 1, but it worked out ok. Perhaps it's my simplicity at work. I'll read the long Emergence article sometime soon, but maybe it won't conflict with my understanding.
Given no known boundary to reality, Occam's Razor tells me that infinity is the simplistic assumption. Big bangs require energy-matter to bang, however compressed. Cosmologist Royal and past Pres. of The Royal Society Martin Rees in _Our Final Century_ ('93) holds infinite multiverses like soap bubbles popping into and out of existence. Quantum or macro, causation is at work, but with infinite opportunity, whatever *IS* must be someplace-time. We find bits in the here-now, and via tools looking back in our universe's history. It is our limited perception and ignorance of infinite unknowns which drives teleological inventions.
I was directed yesterday to Wolfram's talk(The Big Think) about Computation trumping physics as the basis for reality. I'm skeptical that's a form of dematerialization or idealism. My short synopsis concludes: Emergence, in my view, is an argument from ignorance of not knowing all of the potentially infinite causes. I may be all wet, or frozen or...!
Steven, I too am skeptical of any kind of "computation / math will trump physics as the basis for reality." It is, indeed, idealism, of the Platonic / Pythagorean kind. Years ago I saw a talk at CUNY's Graduate Center by mathematician Max Tegmark, author of "Our Mathematical Universe." It must have been the first time he gave the talk in front of a potentially critical audience of philosophers. During a brutal hour of q&a he was absolutely bombarded by logicians, epistemologists, metaphysicians, and philosophers of science. He clearly had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
Massimo, I was surprised to learn recently that the physicist and philosopher Tim Maudlin does not consider himself a materialist. He believes that mathematics constitutes a domain of reality that is not physical. Math is simply a brute fact of the universe that is mind independent — I suppose its mathematical realism he is endorsing. I guess you don’t agree but can you explain how you think about math?
It does. And will give me new perspectives to consider. Thank you!
Daniel, I too have flirted with mathematical Platonism (or, more precisely, Pythagoreanism), because there are pretty strong arguments in its favor in the philosophy of mathematics (and logic).
In the end, however, I am convinced by the constructivist case, put forth for instance by physicist Lee Smolin: math and logic are tools we invented and keep changing in order to help us with our problems. Initially they were both concerned with straightforward empirical applications and then they got more complex. I should probably write a full post on this, but here are two analogies that convinced me:
i) Chess. I suppose a strong Platonist would say that even chess exists in a mind-independent fashion, but if we agree that it's a game invented by human beings, with arbitrary rules, it's interesting to note that one can "discover" fascinating theorems about the game, which can be proven rigorously, just like in math.
ii) Borges's library. In a short shorty, Jorge Luis Borges described a library containing all the possible books or a given size/length written using the English alphabet. Most of them are gibberish. Some of them are tantalizing but incorrect descriptions of reality, and one -- just one -- describes all of reality exactly. This to me is a good model to think about what is often called the "unreasonable" effectiveness of math. There's nothing unreasonable about, it is expected. People forget that though it's true that math is incredibly useful to science, the overwhelming majority of mathematical objects don't have any correspondence to reality, and an infinite number of axioms lead immediately to incoherence. Just like most of the books in Borges's library.
I hope the abov makes sense!
I really like Sean Carroll on emergence. His book will come out next year on the topic. He keeps saying "we aren't LaPlace's demon". By which I take him to mean that aspirations to fully ground our description of the world, and to have every category of description be translatable to every other are most likely futile. So emergence means there really is no better way to understand, say, temperature, center of mass, consciousness, love and poetry, than on those levels. As I like to say, you can't find your car keys with an electron microscope. Car keys don't exist on that level.
Snake, indeed. That's another expect of the problem: do we mean emergence in an ontological or an epistemic sense? At this moment I don't believe in ontological strong emergence, though I'm open to be shown otherwise. But epistemic emergence, meaning that various phenomena are best understood and described at different levels of complexity, to me in the only way to go. I like your example of the key, I might "borrow" it...
I'd be honored if you borrowed the example!
Strong emergence has the taste of a miraculous occurrence, or alchemy. I can't quite wrap my head around it, but I do have much to learn. Is the hard problem of consciousness ever explained as strong emergence? Does that even make sense?
Henry, yes, some people have suggested that consciousness is one example of strong emergence. But as you say, it smells a lot like magic, so it doesn't really explain anything. Not unless people will come up with the mechanisms and laws that make strong emergence possible. As far as I know they have no clue.
Thanks for the help. So much to learn...
That's what we're here for, right?
I have always thought of emergence as a property about which we do not yet have sufficient understanding. We may be able to replicate outcomes, but still not know exactly why. We currently think that quantum mechanics is probability based. But that view may be based on insufficient information. As we learn new things about the universe we come face to face with how much more we don’t know. What we call emergence beautifully highlights this condition. Viva la determinism, materialism, and reductionism.
This reminds me of a character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series who studies “future history”. With enough information he is able to calculate future events.
Paul, there are two types of emergence: supervenient (or "weak") and "strong." Weak emergence is trivial: it simply says that in order to change the value / appearance of any higher order phenomena there needs to be a change in the value / appearance of lower level phenomena. Entirely well documented and uncontroversial.
The question is whether there is any documented case of true, or strong emergence, whereby the complexity of a system somehow (note the vagueness) triggers the coming into existence of new laws that regulate the corresponding level of complexity. I used to be optimistic about the discovery of cases of true emergence, but I'm now far less so.
Here's a good article about it: https://iep.utm.edu/emergence/
OK, OK--GUILTY! Lock him up! Me, too.
You bad boy.
Enjoyed the article though I’m not quite grasping the bit about emergentism and water. What I remember from high school is that in different states the molecules are at different distances from one another: far apart in water vapor, less so in liquid form, and crammed tightly in ice.
So wouldn’t the “emergence” of these various states be a function of the space between the molecules? Or is the question more about getting into the mechanical details of how pressure and temperature cause changes in these distances?
Jim, your recollection is correct. The actual problem is that -- at the moment -- there is no way to predict on the basis of the underlying physics (i.e., quantum statistics) at what temperature / pressure each transition will take place, and of course there is even less of way to explain why it takes a certain number of molecules to produce the characteristic of "wetness" typical of water. (Individual molecules, obviously, are not wet or dry.)