About strong emergence and downward causation
Since Mark Bedau's article on "Weak emergence" (1997) a lot of confusing articles have been published about the meaning of emergence as a scientific-philosophical concept. Let's summarize some definitions:
Bedau disputes this because, according to him, a strongly emergent (ontologically new) phenomenon has properties that are not reducible/derivable from already known physics and are therefore "magical" in his view. In my opinion, this addition by Bedau is superfluous: you do can actually describe the properties of an emergent phenomenon with "normal" physics, where its substructure is usually irrelevant, so a form of "coarse graining" will happen (f.i. with Bohr's atomic model the substructure of the atomic nucleus is irrelevant, only the electric charge of the nucleus plays a role; and you need a new theory (namely quantum mechanics) to describe that phenomenon). Moreover, Bedau adds that a strong emergent phenomenon would cause "downward causation" on its components.
What is "Downward causation"? At least not the reversal of cause and effect. In complex systems, "downward causation" occurs as a form of feedback in which the initial cause is modified by the resulting effect in a roundabout way, leading to a new end result. F.i. if a cook adds more salt after tasting the sauce he need. However, there is a possibility of confusion here with the concept of "supervenience".
Supervenience is therefore completely different from "downward causation". Supervenience is a typical characteristic of strong emergence: after all, the properties of the constituent parts are crucial for the emergence of the strong emergent phenomenon. For example, the characteristics of a water molecule are completely different from its constituent parts (hydrogen and oxygen), but exchanging one of its building blocks with a different type of atom produces a completely different molecule. It may therefore be that Bedau is confusing "downward causation" with "supervenience".
Jaegwon Kim further increases the confusion by considering the Cartesian mental domain as an example of strong emergence, where non-physical properties come into play. He then shows that this automatically leads to overdetermination with underlying physical factors. However, if you consider the brain as a physically complex system, with "consciousness" as a (weak) emergent phenomenon, then there is nothing to worry about.
- Emergence occurs when different components together generate a new phenomenon with properties that cannot be found in the individual components. Emergent properties are therefore characteristics of the collective and not of their parts. The whole is more than the parts.]
- With weak emergence the different components remain independent of each other; if the interaction between those components disappears, the emergent phenomenon (e.g. a school of fish, a flight of starlings, the surface tension of water) disappears also. In most cases the emergent phenomenon is reproducible by computer simulation. This is a deterministic proces, notwithstanding the final result can be unpredictable (f.i. weather forecasts)
- With strong emergence, the components lose their independence and a new ontological entity with new properties emerges. Since almost all objects in everyday life are composed of multiple parts, which together generate new properties of the whole (e.g. all artifacts), this means that almost all objects you encounter in daily life are strongly emergent. These properties, though dependent of their constituting parts, are new and not reducible to properties of their parts (like weak emergency) and you need a new theory to describe this phenomenon (f.i. chemical laws, biological laws, economic laws)
Bedau disputes this because, according to him, a strongly emergent (ontologically new) phenomenon has properties that are not reducible/derivable from already known physics and are therefore "magical" in his view. In my opinion, this addition by Bedau is superfluous: you do can actually describe the properties of an emergent phenomenon with "normal" physics, where its substructure is usually irrelevant, so a form of "coarse graining" will happen (f.i. with Bohr's atomic model the substructure of the atomic nucleus is irrelevant, only the electric charge of the nucleus plays a role; and you need a new theory (namely quantum mechanics) to describe that phenomenon). Moreover, Bedau adds that a strong emergent phenomenon would cause "downward causation" on its components.
What is "Downward causation"? At least not the reversal of cause and effect. In complex systems, "downward causation" occurs as a form of feedback in which the initial cause is modified by the resulting effect in a roundabout way, leading to a new end result. F.i. if a cook adds more salt after tasting the sauce he need. However, there is a possibility of confusion here with the concept of "supervenience".
- A property A is called supervenient over a (subvenient) property B if a change in B has direct consequences for A. This does not mean that B is the direct cause of A (several factors may play a role), but it is a crucial part. For example, phenotypic characteristics are supervenient over certain characteristics of the genotype. Lorenz's butterfly effect, which can cause a tornado elsewhere in the world, is another example.
Supervenience is therefore completely different from "downward causation". Supervenience is a typical characteristic of strong emergence: after all, the properties of the constituent parts are crucial for the emergence of the strong emergent phenomenon. For example, the characteristics of a water molecule are completely different from its constituent parts (hydrogen and oxygen), but exchanging one of its building blocks with a different type of atom produces a completely different molecule. It may therefore be that Bedau is confusing "downward causation" with "supervenience".
Jaegwon Kim further increases the confusion by considering the Cartesian mental domain as an example of strong emergence, where non-physical properties come into play. He then shows that this automatically leads to overdetermination with underlying physical factors. However, if you consider the brain as a physically complex system, with "consciousness" as a (weak) emergent phenomenon, then there is nothing to worry about.
Comments (49)
Quoting Ypan1944
Do you think your description of weak emergence the closest fit for: a) sentience; b) reason as mental emergences from the brain? If so, why?
I ask this question because I think strong emergence the closet fit for: a) sentience; b) reason as mental emergences from the brain. I think this because: a) the human brain is the most networked system imaginable; b) the supervenience of sentience and reason is so strong that minor changes in brain tissue can radically alter practice of sentience and reason.
Quoting ucarr
Conversely, the brain is also damage tolerant and in some cases is able to rewire itself to compensate for damage. So perhaps there is both supervenience and some form of strong emergence?
Quoting Pantagruel
Yes.
"Strong emergency" in the title is very eye-catching. I thought it was going to be a thread about the relationship between down-ward causation and global climate change, as an example of a strong emergency.
Quoting Ypan1944
I don't think this is correct. The strong force of the atom's nucleus is not understood by physics. And since the negative charge of the electrons is balanced by the positive charge of the nucleus, separation of the electrons from the nucleus is not possible. There would no longer be electrons if separation occurs, but free energy as photons. So the electron's "electric charge" is dependent on the atom's nucleus for explanation, and the nucleus cannot be left irrelevant.
Quoting Ypan1944
I find you have not provided a good explanation of "downward causation", only giving a general outline, and stating distinctly what downward causation is not.
Also in chemical reactions, only the electron configuration of the participating atoms or molecules is important.
I agree that there is a lot of confusion and mystification about the meaning of "downward causation". I opt for a "simple" definition here.
I believe 99.999 per cent of an atom's mass is in the nucleus. And you claim the internal structure is irrelevant to "emergent phenomenon". I think you've unnecessarily restricted your definition of "emergent phenomenon" to include only the activity of electrons.
Quoting Ypan1944
What about nuclear reactions though, as we find in the sun and other stars? On the scale of the universe as a whole, nuclear reactions are more significant than chemical reactions.
Doesn't the strength of emergence tend to contra-indicate supervenience.
It seems that you were taught a simplistic version of chemistry.
https://www.isowater.com/what-is-deuterium-oxide-heavy-water/
So I assume you are restricting the concept of "emergence" so that the products of nuclear reactions are not included as forms of emergence. How would you classify this activity then? Surely it's not downward causation. What type of causation is it?
You can of course lump everything together and say that the universe, with everything in it, is emergent as a whole. But that means that the various properties of the universe are obscured.
Well, I think if we're talking about emergency, we ought to consider the whole category, not just "emergent chemical features". If the reality of the situation is "that the various properties of the universe are obscured", then we need to respect that, rather than trying to obscure that fact by hiding it or denying it.
Here is a paper about meditation causing structural changes in the brain, for example.
Again: "supervenience" has nothing to do (in my opinion) with "downward causation" Supervenience is upward causation, not downward. To be strong emergent every component has a subvenient causal effect on a supervenient resulting emergent feature but not "downward".
Nevertheless "downward causation" in the sense of "feedback" is of course important: that is the learning capacity of your brain.
I doubt if our consciousness is strong emergent: it seems too rigid in my opinion.
See also: Michele Paolini Paoletti and Francesco Orilia (to disturb you).
No the chemical properties are not exactly the same. For example, the pH of heavy water is 7.44 instead of 7.0.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
I should say that pH is a physical feature of the ion-concentration of a solution. Chemics - in my opinion - is more about the characteristics of a reaction between different molecules. But I don't bother about more refinement of definitions about physics versus chemistry
Seems important to bother with, in serious consideration of emergence.
Quoting Ypan1944
Do you accept selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors -- SSRIs -- an established medication treatment for major depressive disorder -- as an example of the deep interweave of mind and brain via supervenience? SSRIs can greatly relieve long-term depression, a state of consciousness embedded in the empirical experience of some individuals. They achieve their effect by increasing the volume of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that carries signals between neurons.
In my opinion this is certainly a case of supervenience. But supervenience can both exist in weak and strong emergency.
Quoting Ypan1944
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Ypan1944
You say if damage to the brain has consequences for consciousness, then this is evidence consciousness is highly emergent, with supervenience over neurons.
So, I provide a well-documented example of deficient serotonin levels in persons with clinical depression. This deficiency is tied to brain malfunction that in turn causes strong negativity of personal experiences in the mind of the afflicted person. This evidence meets your standards of supervenience over neuronal activity with gross changes in consciousness.
You say you don't believe damage to the brain has consequences for consciousness.
You emphasize the strong versus weak emergence distinction, saying there's little difference, thus implying strong emergence is only slightly stronger than weak emergence.
Since supervenience -- whether strong or weak -- evidences emergence of mind, you presumably accept it as fact. Is your goal in this conversation denial of strong emergency?
My goals are:
* Explain the difference between weak and strong emergency
* Explain the difference between "downward causation" and "supervenience"
* Show that there is a close connection between "strong emergency" and "supervenience" (and not with "downward causation") in the sense that every constituting component is crucial for the emergent event is happening.
In the case of consciousness: not every neuron in your brain is crucial for your consciousness (in fact, a lot of neurons die as you get older). In the case of Alzheimer disease, you can show that some neurons or combination of neurons are essential (subvenient) for your consciousness. So you can say that the whole working of your brain is weak emergent and some parts of it perhaps strong emergent.
To some, Strong Emergence seems to imply a violation of Determinism, and Downward Causation implies a violation of physical Cause & Effect. Is this seemingly "magical" appearance of novelty the crux of your OP?
In his seminal work, Incomplete Nature, Terrence Deacon addresses both of those controversial topics. Yet, the Information Philosopher goes into even more detail, and both use the language of Information Theory to explain how the "magic" works. Are you familiar with these authors? :smile:
Emergence : A term used to designate an apparently discontinuous transition from one mode of causal properties to another of a higher rank, typically associated with an increase in scale in which lower-order component interactions contribute to the lower-order interactions. The term has a long and diverse history, but throughout this history it has been used to describe the way that living and mental processes depend upon chemical and physical processes, yet exhibit collective properties exhibited by living and non-mental processes, and in many cases appear to violate the ubiquitous tendencies exhibited by these component interactions
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
Emergence :
Information philosophy explains the reality of emergence, because what emerges is new information.
Emergent Dualism :
Reductionist physicalists like Jaegwon Kim argue for the causal closure of the world. Causal closure is the idea that everything that is caused to happen in the world is caused by (earlier) physical events in the world. This eliminates the possibility of a "non-reductive" physicalism, in which higher level emergence properties and capabilities are not reducible to purely physical causes. Closure under physical causes denies the emergence of levels, in particular a non-reducible mental level, capable of downward causation.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/emergent_dualism.html
I think there is a lot of confusion about definition and features of (weak/strong) emergency. I am a physicalist, so a belief that all phenomena (even mental phenomena) are in principle reducible to known physical interactions. However that doesn't mean that - the other way round - all phenomena are predictable, because of deterministic physical laws. This is especially true for the collective features of complex systems (magnets, superconductors, soap bubbles, chemical systems, biological systems, etc.). These features are more or less easier described by macroscopic features by means of "course graining". You don't need to go down to a lower (sub)atomic level to achieve a satisfactory explanation for this collective behavior. It is called emergent behavior for it is new because it is unpredictable.
Therefore I like also to call artifacts emergent (even strong emergent): they need an inventor or artist to construct them, and they are in essence unpredictable.
I dislike the self-evidence of Bedau's connection between (strong)emergence and "downward causation". Roger Sperry's example of a rolling wheel has nothing to do with downward causation and is not even emergent. In my opinion with "downward causation" is always ment: "feedback". This is a very common feature of complex systems and requires always a suitable context where such a feature can happen (f.i. condensation, crystallization, self-organizing systems, evolution, leading to entropy reduction). In the case of artifacts feedback is leading to improvements and correcting errors. However feedback is never self-evident: it only happens under special conditions.
On the other hand is supervenience strongly connected with emergence. In the case of strong emergence every component is subvenient to the apparent emergent behavior. In the case of weak emergency there are only some subvenient component who are crucial for the emergent behavior.
I do know your valuable links to informationphilosopher.com, however I think that most philosophers are not up to date about developments in complex systems theory of the last 20 year. See for recent achievements f.i. https://www.d-iep.org .
Thanks for your link to Terrence Deacon.
Cognitive & computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter, in Godel, Escher, Bach. argued that the fortuitous evolutionary emergence of Life & Mind was due to "strange loops" (feedback cycles) in physical processes. Thus, the "creativity" of an otherwise deterministic system is caused by a "glitch in the matrix". Classical physics had no explanation for novelty in evolution. But Quantum Physics discovered a possible gap in cause & effect determinism in the Uncertainty Principle, which makes sub-atomic processes somewhat unpredictable.
Ironically, the looping "glitch" itself is unexpected in classical deterministic physics. Which suggests the logical necessity for "an inventor or artist to construct them". But natural or supernatural creativity of any kind is abhorrent to most scientific worldviews, that are based on the predictability of nature. So, how else can we explain the appearance of Strong Emergence in the world, without assuming either sporadic Divine Intervention, or at least a hypothetical intelligent First Cause, to design or program a dynamic system capable of creating radical novelty, such as self-referencing "featherless bipeds" with big brains, who ask recursive questions about their own origins? :brow:
In another thread on this forum*1, we have been discussing Deacon's seminal concept of Constitutive or Causal Absence, as it relates to a Materialistic worldview. As you might expect, we have been going around in strange-loop circles on how to make sense of a creative causal gap*2 in the chain of Determinism*3, from the perspective that inert Matter is the fundamental element of reality.
For Deacon, that Constitutive Absence is similar to Hofstadter's Strange Loop, as an explanation for the emergence of new links, such as animated matter, in the chain of physical Necessity. One aspect of his theory is Downward Causation*4. Although the thread is currently spinning its wheels, the paradoxical notion of Absential Materialism may be obliquely relevant to your own OP. :smile:
*1. Absential Materialism : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14931/absential-materialism/p1
*2. Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
*3. Scientific determinism is the belief that whatever happens has physically determinate causes and is the predictable result of these causes.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27759319
*4. The Metaphysics of Downward Causation :
Deacons approach is similar. He lists four Aristotelian causes and describes the process of a slow erosion of the plural notion of causality in the history of philosophy and science.
https://philarchive.org/archive/TABTMO
This sounds like a description of Holism, as a metaphysical concept relevant to physical things & processes. But you didn't use that controversial term. Was that ententional?
The original title of this thread was spelled "emergency". That may have been a typo, but "Emergence" and "Emergency" are related concepts. "Emergence" usually refers to the gradual evolution of novelty within a system. But "Emergency" suggests a radical break in the chain of causation that requires special treatment. One kind of philosophically important "strong" emergence is the transition from a collection of parts to an integrated system with new properties of its own, such as the evolutionary appearance of self-animated matter, and self-referencing minds in the world. Is that what this thread is about? :smile:
PS___Bedau seems to be trying to avoid the metaphysical implications*2 of Strong Emergence, since it appears to violate the deterministic presumptions of Materialism. Are you defending an alternative metaphysic?
*1. emergence and emergency despite their common origin are now completely differentiated, emergence meaning emerging or coming into notice, and emergency meaning a juncture that has arisen, especially one that calls for prompt measures.
https://jazzmigration.com/language/en/emergence-emergency/
*2. I will argue that weak emergence (defined below) meets these three goals: it is metaphysically innocent, consistent with materialism,
http://people.reed.edu/~mab/papers/weak.emergence.pdf
This is an incorrect definition of supervenience: the relationship goes in the opposite direction. And you go on to make an incorrect argument from it:
Quoting Ypan1944
Quoting SEP
Thus, supervenience admits underdetermination of supervenient properties by subvenient properties. If consciousness is supervenient upon the structure of neurons, what follows is that any difference in conscious states must be accompanied (not to say "caused") by a difference in the brain structure. Conversely, a difference in the brain structure, such as minor brain damage, but also any number of harmless variations, does not necessarily bear consequences for consciousness.
Sorry, but look at Wikipedia for this definition:
[i]"In philosophy, supervenience refers to a relation between sets of properties or sets of facts. X is said to supervene on Y if and only if some difference in Y is necessary for any difference in X to be possible."[/I]
This has nothing to do with your "downward causation" conception
I am not a "holist" : holism denies reductionism and I don't do that. Nevertheless despite the deterministic physical laws who are not linear but exponential in time, not all phenomena are predictable. (f.i. the three-body-problem). At a certain complexity level new features appear who are characteristic of the collective. To describe these (emergent) features you don't need to go down to the atomic level. You need only some qualifiers which are characteristic of the macroscopic level of the meant emergent phenomenon.
I didn't realize the difference between "emergent" and "emergency" because I am not a native speaker. I am not convinced about the "radical causal break" you mentioned. Sure, strong emergent phenomena has an ontological meaning of their own, but that doesn't mean that such phenomena are "unphysical".
In my opinion (strong) emergent phenomena are very common in daily life and certainly not "unphysical".
An exception is perhaps the notion of qualia[/I]. Whatever physical analysis you possibly can make, you can never explain what it is to see the colour RED, because this is a typical [i]subjective emergent phenomenon and therefore you can never give a objective explanation. I think the same is at hand with "consciousness" .
I am not a supporter of the "Theory of everything" because such a theory can never predict the occurrence of (strong) emergent phenomena. Only some simple (weak) emergent phenomena are more or less capable to predict by mean of computer simulation. But unpredictability does't mean that you need a "Divine Inventor". Just accept that the world in essence is unpredictable!
Yes, this is almost identical to the definition that I quoted in my post, and it is the opposite of what you stated and then used to argue that consciousness cannot supervene on brain properties.
I said nothing about downward causation, but emergence and supervenience are closely related concepts, so it is important to get the basics right in a discussion about them.
Actually, the perspective of Holism does not deny Reductionism, it just offers a different (complementary)*1 way of looking at the world. Some scientists dismiss Holism as a New Age religious belief. But the term originally referred to a systematic approach to understanding the complex interactions of Evolution*2.
Your OP discussion of Strong Emergence sounds to me like a description of a holistic process, in which the unpredictable "emergence" of novel properties is a primary feature*3. But if you want to avoid the prejudicial "pseudoscience" associations with the term*4, you can just call it "Systems Theory", which is now widely used in various sciences studying complexity*5 : Biology, Economics, Ecology, etc. The Santa Fe Institute for the study of Complex Systems --- founded by physicist Murray Gell-Mann, among others --- is a prominent scientific think tank utilizing holistic Systems Theory.
Personally, I don't have a problem with the word "Holism", because I have actually read the book that introduced the term*1. And it had nothing to do with New Age religion. But if your personal experience has biased you against it, please feel free to use alternative terminology, such as "Integrated Whole Systems", to explain how metaphysical functions, such as Consciousness, could emerge from physical systems and biological organisms. :smile:
PS___ "Metaphysical" also has pseudoscience associations, due to its use by Catholic theologians. But the conceptual distinction originated in Aristotle's book on Nature, and referred to holistic comprehension of general principles, instead of reductive knowledge about specific things : "Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,025:1
*1. Reductionistic and Holistic Science :
Reductionism and holism are in fact interdependent and complementary.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067528/
*2. Holism and Evolution :
Holism and Evolution is a 1926 book by South African statesman Jan Smuts, in which he coined the word "holism", although Smuts' meaning differs from the modern concept of holism. Smuts defined holism as the "fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in the universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism_and_Evolution
*3. Holism and Emergence :
The concept of holism informs the methodology for a broad array of scientific fields and lifestyle practices. When applications of holism are said to reveal properties of a whole system beyond those of its parts, these qualities are referred to as emergent properties of that system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism
*4. Systems Theory/Holism :
It (General System Theory) was criticized as pseudoscience and said to be nothing more than an admonishment to attend to things in a holistic way. Such criticisms would have lost their point had it been recognized that von Bertalanffy's general system theory is a perspective or paradigm, and that such basic conceptual frameworks play a key role in the development of exact scientific theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
*5. Emergence, (Self)Organization, and Complexity :
Many complex systems exhibit emergence: properties at one scale that are not present at another scale. Self-organization can be described when the components of a system interact to produce a global pattern or behavior, without a leader or external controller. Complexity is characterized by interactions. These interactions can generate novel information that is not present in initial nor boundary conditions, limiting prediction.
https://www.santafe.edu/events/emergence-selforganization-and-complexity
Sorry if you misunderstood my post, but I really meant that my definition has the same meaning as Wikipedia 's definition. I am absolutely not reversing cause and effect. In the case of consciousness: this is certainly emergent and my remark that some parts of the brain are crucial for consciousness indicates that there is at least some form of supervenience.
It is not. Just reread the definitions and pay attention to the placing of the terms. This is essential to understand in a discussion of emergence.
Your definition:
Quoting Ypan1944
In slogan form, there cannot be a B-difference without an A-difference.
SEP/Wiki definition:
Quoting SEP
In slogan form, there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference.
Quoting Ypan1944
This contradicts what you said earlier, which would indeed follow from your personal definition of supervenience, but not from the standard definition:
Quoting Ypan1944
It's amazing how you can misinterpret my definition! After all, the only correct slogan that you can connect with my definition is:
there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference
So we agree with this last slogan. My remark that a change in B has direct consequences for A" is just a symmetric formulation, stipulating the causal connection between B and A.
But let's stop with nitpicking in this discussion please!
If you start from this position, and allow for the empirical finding that larger things appear to be "made up of," or "composed of," smaller things, then you're going to have problems explaining emergence. It is a problem not unlike Hume's Guillotine. Strong emergence of the sort that would seem to resolve all the problems posed by consciousness seems to be precluded by our starting axioms.
In general, I think the empirical support for reductionism is weak, and this should make us question starting points that would seem to lead us to posit it as essential. For example, chemistry is a mature science, but it has yet to be reduced. There all all sorts of questions about "what actually constitutes reduction," but in general it seems that actual reductions are quite rare. Unifications seem far more common, but unifications point in the other direction. They represent the ability to explain disparate phenomena in terms of more general and universal principles, rather than in terms of component parts. Often, such general principles act on multiple levels of scale in a sort of fractal recurrence, and the presupposition that the smaller scale in more ontologically primary seems unwarranted.
There is no prima facie reason why wholes must be definable in terms of parts rather than vice versa. Emergence presupposes that it is exactly this sort of explanation that is required though, that the parts must explain the behavior of the whole, even if the properties of the whole cannot be known from the parts. Is this setting us up for faliure? Can one declare that we must find a means of describing how it is that wholes can have properties entirely missing from parts, and then hope for success in finding an explanation where an analysis of parts explains this phenomena?
Grand unification is normally thought of in terms of leaving us with "one [I]type[/I] of thing." But it seems like it could as well be thought of as getting us to just "one thing." It's the difference between "[I]things[/I] act as they do because of what they are," and "the entire world does what it does because of what it is."
If we ever get down to a unification where there can be said to only be one "type of stuff," then things doing what they do because of "what they are," ceases to do any explanatory lifting. All explanation ends up coming from change process and empirically, all process appears to bleed across the defining lines of "things." This, to my mind, would reveal "parts" to be abstractions, and thinking of properties as "emerging from parts," to simply be a misleading paradigm, a bad starting point. It might be more correct to say that "parts emerge from abstraction," and the thing to explain is how we lose properties as we chop things up, how deficit emerges, not new properties.
Your formulation is indeed a misstatement of the concept of supervenience, as Sophisticat pointed out. A paradigmatic case of supervenience is the relationship that holds between the mental and the physical. It is important to notice that this relation is consistent with multiple realizability. If Jane and Sue are physically identical, it can not be the case that they have distinct mental properties. Therefore, if they differ mentally, they must also differ physically (which is the opposite entailment to what your formulation expresses). Due to the multiple realizability of mental properties into physical states, it is still possible that Sue and Jane could share the same mental states (either some of them or all of them) in spite of them differing physically. In that case, a change in B (the physical) need not have any consequence on A (the mental), in spite of the supervenient relation of A over B holding true.
You're right, of course. Reading through this thread as someone who has been deeply fascinated by Emergence over the past couple years has been a ... frustrating experience.
[I]"Jaegwon Kim notices that this characteristic of EM is related to the concept of supervenience (SUP), which simply states that the higher-level properties of a system occur only if appropriate conditions are realized on the lower-level."[/I]
Yes. "Supervenience" is a technical logical term, and does not necessarily entail "downward causation". But some thinkers have used the notion of logical priority to infer physical order of causation. In that case, like Holism, it appears to conflict with the typical scientific method of Reductionism from a whole system to its constituent parts. But Nature seems to be able to work both ways, especially in its mental functions. If you don't like the term "Holism", does "non-reductive physicalism" make sense in your worldview? :smile:
Property Emergence, Supervenience, and Downward Causation :
Downward causation (DC) is the key notion in emergentist philosophy, as shown by the tension between the aspects of dependence and nonreducibility in the concept of supervenience, preferred by many philosophers to emergence as a basis for nonreductive physicalism.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S143176130470018X
According to NONREDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM, mental properties, along with other higher-level properties, constitute an autonomous domain that resists reduction to the physical domain
http://www.csun.edu/~tab2595/14_Reductive_Nonreductive_Physicalism.pdf
Note --- I wouldn't say "autonomous", but merely place Mind in a special philosophical category from Matter. You can't dissect Ideas with a scalpel, but with Reason.