Alexander,

 

 Fascinating comments. I generally consider emergence ontologically rather than ontically, and so you have me mulling over a shift in perspective. For now, let me say that my descriptive ontology of emergence emphasizes the concept of behavior and the behavior/language games of scientists, mapping the correspondence between the two. I will offer a few brief comments and then share an idea I had that might connect to your quantum organics and ultimate ontic emergence. But first, I suggest we also try to get the descriptive ontological terms down. As we have noted, emergence has gotten a bad rap and we need to have a shared language system describing it so that it is not dismissed by the misguided reductionists. So, let’s do both ontic and descriptive ontological. Toward that end (and building off your note), I offer three kinds of emergence: 1) time/event; 2) weak-causal explanatory and 3) strong-causal explanatory, which are as follows:

 

  Time/Event emergence. This is the most basic and simply refers to the unfolding wave of behavior/process. Things are happening at each moment in time that have never happened before and the information content of the universe is increasing as the number of events increases. Of course, many events do not involve emergence in terms of novel properties/entities/forms that have cause effect, part-whole implications going forward. For example, oftentimes the aggregate of the event can be characterized in simple additive terms and nothing new follows other than the event itself. However, it should be noted that this is not what is traditionally meant by emergence in the “interesting” sense of the word. Event/time/process emergence corresponds to the (global) Time dimension on the ToK.

 

  Of course, sometimes new properties and entities do emerge. This corresponds to the vertical/complexity dimension on the ToK. The ToK embraces the descriptive distinction between “weak” emergence and “strong” emergence. Weak emergence involves fundamental transformations of entities and properties within dimensions of complexity. The shift from physical to chemical changes is an example of weak emergence in the language system of the ToK. Chemical changes and properties are different and emergent in fundamental ways, but they still are part of Matter and the material sciences. Likewise the shift from bacteria/simple cells into eukaryotic cells was a major emergent shift, but it occurred within the dimension of Life, and thus is classified as a “weakly” emergent event.

 

  Then you have strong emergence, which are the dimensions of complexity. The Big Bang resulted in Matter, which is the first example of strong emergence. The other dimensions of complexity that follows, Life, Mind, and Culture (the forms of the souls of the living in Aristotle’s metaphysics?) are strongly emergent as a function of information-communication cumulative causal processes. Unlike Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture all process information, communicate and remember the past and use it to predict the future. This idea about weak versus strong as characterized by levels versus dimensions is a novel descriptive ontological claim, unique to the ToK metaphysical language system.

 

  Finally, your comment on quantum organics feels right to me. Indeed, it reminds me of Lee Smolin’s Darwinian conception of the evolution of the material universe, which I think you are positively inclined towards as am I. It also perhaps could align with a metaphorical model of gravity I developed a long time ago, as I was using the ToK to try to conceptually merge quantum mechanics and general relativity into a picture of “quantum relativity.” The idea was that the “shape” of how gravitational spacetime unfolded/evolved/retained history (i.e., the relationship between mass, space and time) might be as follows: quantum mechanics/organics provided the variation, gravitation was the selection, and time itself was the retention. Why did I think of gravity as a form of “selection”? I conceived it as a form of “regression” to the mean. That is, my journey took me toward seeing bits of matter as bits of data on a grid. And, just as regression refers to the shift toward a central tendency, so to does gravity. The idea here is that the base of the universe is a “quantum foam”, and there are quantum fluctuations everywhere. Mass refers to the density of the digits of behavioral information localized in spacetime. The relations between masses in spacetime can be considered a “co-relation” in spacetime (noting the relationship between correlation and regression). I speculated that this was more than just an analogy. That is, I wondered if gravity is actually a form of a regression to the central tendency. And quantum fluctuations represent the rolling of the dice. The closer and more dense the material information is packed, the stronger the regression between clusters. At this point, this is fully metaphorical and a big problem is that I don’t speak advanced mathematics and thus can’t advance the argument. I can say I shared it with John Wheeler back in 2001 and he thought it was “intriguing” and hooked me up with a physics colleague of his at UPENN. Unfortunately, since I did not speak advanced math, our lines of communication quickly broke down. He was, however, fine with the causal picture of the universe afforded by the ToK and thought there might be something to the idea in that it offered a novel way to link macro-level gravity with micro-level quantum organics. Consider it a crazy idea that might advance the picture of ontic emergence via a novel way to capture the material dimension of complexity in terms of (quantum) variation, (gravitational) selection and (historical) retention.

 

Best,
Gregg

 

 

From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexander Bard
Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 5:34 AM
To: Intellectual Deep Web <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: What is intelligence, really?

 

Dear Gregg

 

I agree 100%. I'm with you 100%. And even within quantum organics (I prefer this term over the misnomer quantum mechanics) reductionism collapses as there apparently is DIFFERENCE within quantum physics and this difference in itself can not be accounted for within reductionism. You see, reductionism is ultimately the Platonist fantasy about the Platonist himself being the singular point at which existence as a whole starts (his own existence as the only existence as Heidegger would refer to this narcissistic fantasy). Then the metaphor is transferred onto the singularity as The Big Bang. But while the singularity required no space (in physics, space and not time is the ultimate illusion, entanglement proves this), the beginning of everything is not some solid point without difference. Because difference starts with time (one momentum being different from the next) and spatial difference only follows later (to then be followed by such assymetries as matter being larger than anti-matter, the past being larger than the future etc). So I am a radical emergentist. The continuum also runs deeper than discretion (hypertime dictates time rather than the other way around). But perhaps then we should afford to study what genuine emergences really are, ontically rather than ontologically speaking, and how about probabilism as a start? That's still the question I'm engaged with. Yes, emergences exist, but in what way is an emergence different from a non-emergent momentum? And if we follow Whitehead and claim all momenta are emergent, what does that mean?

 

Best intentions

Alexander

 

Den tors 7 mars 2019 kl 00:48 skrev Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>:

Alexander,

   Thanks for your note. I think the onus of responsibility rests with those who argue for any kind of pure form of reductionism. For me, what I shared characterizes what emergence is. (Not sure about your writing “what emergence does”).

   I use ToK as a metaphysical system to organize empirical science. It is empirically the case that science describes the behavior of objects and it is necessary to describe objects at the appropriate level of analysis. Explanatory reductionism is obviously and empirically false. That is, “higher sciences” are remaining autonomous and not being eliminated as we learn more. Psychology, the science of animal-mental behavior, will never be and can never be reduced to brain science or any other branch of biology. The animal behavioral “law of effect” exists on its own terms. In fact, psychology has us helped understand neuroscience far more than the reverse. All of this is because the state of nature is “part-whole” interdependence. Parts influence wholes, and wholes influence parts. And science studies behavior of objects in contexts. They explain the behavioral phenomena in holistic and in functional terms. Reductionism and logical consistency are features, but are minor relative to holism and functionalism. Both Eastern and Western (here, here, here, here) folks have made good arguments for this key point (which basically undercuts explanatory and ontological reductionism)

   Ontological reductionism also seems blatantly misguided IMO and I have never seen a good, coherent argument for it. Reduce to what, exactly? Sociology to psychology? Psychology to neuroscience? Neuroscience to biochemistry? Finally quantum mechanics and general relativity? It is a fantasy of the modern intellectual Western tradition. To show how confused everyone is, I had lunch one time with Patricia Churchland, famous for her (and her husband Paul) “eliminative reductionism.”  I pulled out the ToK System and shared that, and she said, “Yes, that is what I mean. I can get behind that!”

   Emergence is an empirical and historical fact; emergence is the way science works (i.e., behavioral/functional processes at the level of whole entities), emergence is depicted by the ToK and PTB.

   Also re chance, my read of quantum indeterminism is that such phenomena are fundamentally stochastic in nature.

 Best of intentions,

Gregg

 From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexander Bard
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 10:30 AM
To: Intellectual Deep Web <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: What is intelligence, really?

 Yes, dear Gregg, I know what emergence does as I also see the products of emergences throughout history.

But this does not explain what emergence is. Emergence is apparently irreversible. But why is that? Does chance exist? And if so, how?

Because if so, emergence theory will ultimately kill reductionism. But as long as neither the reductionists nor the emergentists prove why they are right, the verdict is still out.

And for process philosophy this is absolutely essential. Even the question of whether reality is ultimately discrete or continuous hinges on this issue.

What is emergence? If we solve that we no longer have to accept reductionism's absurd claim that everything was built into the big bang from the very start and time is therefore illusional.

Stahlman wants to return to the soul. I agree. But even the soul disappears in a reductionist universe. If one wants a return to the soul, one had better fight for process and emergence.

Best intentions

Alexander

 

Den mån 4 mars 2019 kl 14:22 skrev Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>:

Alexander,

 

  I will jump in here and say that the Tree of Knowledge System offers a visual depiction regarding the relationship between reduction and emergence.

 

 

It offers a novel way to think of modern science as mapping behaviors in the universe at different levels and dimensions (and frequencies), which gives us a “Periodic Table of Behavior” arranged in rows and columns as such:

 

 

Emergence is key both because wholes have different properties and spacetime “durations” than their parts (it is obviously meaningless to talk about events happening at the Cultural dimension such as this dialogical exchange in terms of Planck times and distances).

 

In addition to size/property dynamics associated with emergence, the ToK also shows that qualitatively different patterns of behavior emerge as a function of different information-communication systems. Life-genetic, Mind-neuronal, and Culture-Language (what you refer to as ideology). To my way of thinking, information/communication causation connects to Aristotle’s formal cause and I think his conception of “soul” at the vegetative, animal and human levels lines up very nicely with this formulation (i.e., Life/Organisms, Mind/Animals, Culture/Persons).    

 

 

Best,

Gregg

 

 

.

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