Emergent Properties

[lesliedellow]

I bow to your omniscience.

Thank you. However, the usual tactic is to define consciousness in such a way as to make it easy to explain, and then to claim that the great mystery has finally been resolved. The only problem being that consciousness so defined is not recognised by other people as being what they mean by consciousness.

If there had been a viable explanation it wouldn't still be an ongoing debate amongst philosophers and others (such as Roger Penrose).

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

"God did it" does sound like embarrassed hand waving to me. It explains nothing. Why believe in gods at all?

"Emergent properties" is a valid term in science. Try studying the behaviour of an ant colony using only one ant.

Emergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.

Biology can be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of chemistry which, in turn, can be viewed as an emergent property of particle physics. "

What does an embarrassed materialist sound like?

"Emergence", like God, has no explanatory power.

Saying "emergence did it" is the same as saying "God did it". It doesn't tell you anything.

A simple example of emergence is water's wetness. H2O molecules on their own are not wet. Only when a large enough group of them come together does the concept of wetness manifest itself. So does saying, "That's an emergent property" explain how it is an emergent property?

What about the atoms coming together in this way makes them wet? How many atoms do you need before wetness develops?


Emergence is a label, not an explanation.

 

[Davian]

Thank you.

My comment was entirely sarcastic.

However, the usual tactic is to define consciousness in such a way as to make it easy to explain, and then to claim that the great mystery has finally been resolved.

What is your scientific definition of consciousness?

The only problem being that consciousness so defined is not recognised by other people as being what they mean by consciousness.

Then they will have to present their own testable, falsifiable, robust definition of what they mean by the word. The dualists always fall short of that target.

Myself, I follow the work of philosophers working with neuroscientists, such as Metzinger and Dennett.

If there had been a viable explanation it wouldn't still be an ongoing debate amongst philosophers and others (such as Roger Penrose).

Roger Penrose is a mathematical physicist. I have seen no evidence that should make one think of consciousness as anything other than a question of biology.

 

[Davian]

"Emergence", like God, has no explanatory power.

Saying "emergence did it" is the same as saying "God did it". It doesn't tell you anything.

A simple example of emergence is water's wetness. H2O molecules on their own are not wet. Only when a large enough group of them come together does the concept of wetness manifest itself. So does saying, "That's an emergent property" explain how it is an emergent property?

What about the atoms coming together in this way makes them wet? How many atoms do you need before wetness develops?


Emergence is a label, not an explanation.

I disagree. While the word itself does not have direct explanatory power, it does act as a label, an explanation for why you need to put into your scientific bucket more than one ant to observe a colony, one water molecule to observe wetness, or one neuron to observe consciousness.

With gods, there isn't even a bottom to the bucket.