Complexity

in article [email hidden], John Wilkins at
[email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04 9:07 PM:

Quoted message said:

William Morse <[email hidden]> wrote:

...

Quoted message said:

But before I do that: isn't the science of physics doomed
due to the absence of rules that we can know of governing
metaphysics? Assuming a reductionist stance for now -
that biology is explained by chemistry, and chemistry is
explained by physics - then I have to ask the question:
what explains physics? Is there physical metaphysics?
There appear to be three possible answers - probably Dr.
John (Wilkins) can come up with more:

I shan't, but you raise a very cute problem: if
explanation is something along the lines of the n-d (nomological-
deductive) model, where you have satisfactorily explained
a phenomenon or explanadum E only so far as you have
deduced E from a generalisation or law L and a set of
boundary and initial conditions C [they teach us to talk
like this, you know], how can metaphysics explain physics?

For there are no laws or generalisations in metaphysics
from which we can deduce or even infer the laws of physics
or the very existence of a physical world.

I shall have to think this one through, and publish a
paper on it :-)

Ultimately, I think that physics must explain itself. It
must be fundamentally teleological.

Guy

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Wirt Atmar
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:

Quoted message said:

Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.

[snip] I see vitalism as something to be explained by
science, rather than avoided as if it must represent a
falsehood. I suspect that the

term

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"vitalism" connotes different things for us.

Quoted message said:

I think you are anachronistically interpreting "vitalism"
the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
that a property occurs at a physical level or scale which
cannot be reduced to the properties of the components.
Hence, for example, consciousness is the paradigmatic case
of an emergent property, because it is supposed to have
features that cannot be explained as the vector sum of all
the dynamics of neurons and their environmental inputs.
But each new discovery shows this to be false. Likewise
with evolution. Each emergent property turns out to be
either a cause for a research program to decompose it into
its substrate, or can already be explained that way.
People who rest satisfied with emergent properties do,
indeed, tread close to mysticism and vitalism.

Quoted message said:

I also take issue with your assertion that when
"emergent properties are introduced into a philosophy of
evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness is
simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost

always

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parts of our models, especially in the study of such
high-order

phenomena as

Quoted message said:

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evolutionary biology. That is what assumptions are all
about. Even our assumptions are usually about very high-
order phenomena, which

themselves

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would require hefty assumption sets to explain. I do not
see the introduction of emergent properties [note that
this is VERY different

from

Quoted message said:

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the notion of emergent systems] as introducing either
mystery or

vitalism

Quoted message said:

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into theory. Pressure, for example, is an emergent
property of a

collection

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of atoms, which is not definable for a single atom in
isolation. Would

you

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say that introducing the concept of pressure into
physical theory

invoked

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

additional mystery and "treads close to vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for -
there is no emergence here. The classical example,
introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the
liquid properties of water, which he said could not be
deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But
we do exactly that these days - you can model quite
accurately the dynamics and microproperties of water on a
computer using only the known properties of hydrogen and
oxygen atoms. It only took a computer that was more
powerful than Mill had to hand.

I have no desire to defend Guy Hoelzer's reading of
"vitalism", but I do wish to take issue with John Wilkins'
reading of "emergentism". However, since John knows much
more about the history of the use of this word than I do,
prudence dictates that I should coin a new term for the
variant form of emergentism that I wish to defend.
Therefore, I will call myself an "emergence-oriented
reductionist". I suspect that most scientifically literate
persons interested in emergence adhere to this ideology.

An "emergence-oriented reductionist" definitely does NOT
believe that you cannot account for the emergent property in
terms of the properties of the system components and their
interactions. If an "emergent property" is discovered that
is not yet explained in those terms, then that is motivation
for the creation of a reductionist research programme to
find the missing explanation.

But if all "emergence" exists only to be explained away, you
may ask, why does the "emergence-oriented reductionist" go
out of his way to call attention to "emergent properties"?
Good question. The answer requires that we consider a three-
level description of a system.

Consider a top-level system S which can be decomposed into
mid-level subsystems M_sub_1, M_sub_2, ..., M_sub_i, ...
Suppose that there is a property S_EP that is emergent in
the sense that the explanation of S_EP is only possible
reductionistically by considering the properties of all the
M_sub_i subsystems AND their interactions.

Now, assume that the M_sub_i subsystems are further broken
down into lower-level subsystems L_sub_i_sub_j, and that the
properties of the mid-level subsystems (both emergent and
nonemergent) are reductionistically explained by the low-
level properties and their interactions.

The question now arises: can we eliminate the middle level
of subsystems and interactions from our explanatory
structure? In theory, this should be possible, as long as we
can come up with a way of describing all of the interactions
- M to M, L to L, and M to L - in the same language. But,
this attempt to translate all of the interactions into a
single low-level language may fail because we have
impoverished our descriptive vocabulary. We have eliminated
all of the properties that were emergent at the mid-level!
So, how do we translate the original description of M to M
interactions into descriptions of L to L interactions?

At the very least, an "emergence-oriented reductionist"
views the task of eliminating explanatory level M with
distaste. On a day when he is feeling intransigent, he may
even claim that the elimination of the middle level of
explanation is impossible in principle.

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness of
water as an example of what I have just expounded. A
reductionist explanation of liquid water might postulate a
"fluid mosaic" model, with small domains of crystaline water
separated by boundary regions of gaseous water. The dynamics
is that water molecules are continually moving from the
crystaline phase to the gas phase and back. That is, we have
a three-level description - molecules, crystaline domains,
and the liquid system as a whole. And, there is just no way
to collapse this to a two-level description and throw out
the properties - emergent and otherwise - of the middle
level. Similarly, it would be impossible to do a
hydrodynamic model of stream flow at the molecular level,
because emergent properties of liquid water (viscosity,
surface tension, etc.) have been lost.

Hi John,
in article [email hidden], John Wilkins at
[email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04 9:07 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

Dear Wirt,

I am responding to a wonderful post of yours. You and I
are in extremely close agreement on these issues, in
general, but I want to "pick one nit" out of your post.
You and I have discovered our disagreement on this
particular issue before, but I thought it might be useful
to lay it out for discussion in sbe.

in article [email hidden], Wirt Atmar
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:

Quoted message said:

Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.

I often see the term "vitalism" used in this way (the way
I think you are using it), as a rhetorical punishment for
perceived false logic, or warning to avoid this direction
in our modeling of nature. I don't understand this
position. I see vitalism as something to be explained by
science, rather than avoided as if it must represent a
falsehood. I suspect that the term "vitalism" connotes
different things for us. To me it connotes an actively
driven system that behaves in ways that maximize its
functional effectiveness and persistence. Life certainly
does this, as well as any dissipative system (sensu
Prigogine).

Vital fluids, interior molds, elan vital, entelechies and
the like postulate an occult force as an explanation. When
the mechanisms of reproduction, growth and metabolism were
unknown, it might have been worthwhile to postulate them,
but now it is merely mysticism. "Vitalism" is the theory
that there is something qualitatively different *at every
level* between life and nonlife - the vital force must
explain why cells divide, why organisms grow, why they
react to stimuli. But we know why they do these things,
and there is no non-physical remainder left over to
explain. I think you are anachronistically interpreting
"vitalism" the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
that a property occurs at a physical level or scale which
cannot be reduced to the properties of the components.
Hence, for example, consciousness is the paradigmatic case
of an emergent property, because it is supposed to have
features that cannot be explained as the vector sum of all
the dynamics of neurons and their environmental inputs.
But each new discovery shows this to be false. Likewise
with evolution. Each emergent property turns out to be
either a cause for a research program to decompose it into
its substrate, or can already be explained that way.
People who rest satisfied with emergent properties do,
indeed, tread close to mysticism and vitalism.

I strongly disagree, and I don't see anything here other
than an unfounded claim. I see and appreciate the historical
and philosophical baggage associated with the term
"vitalism." I guess I need a different term to label the
kinds of physical systems I described above. How would you
feel about calling them "energetic."

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I also take issue with your assertion that when "emergent
properties are introduced into a philosophy of
evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness is
simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost always
parts of our models, especially in the study of such high-
order phenomena as evolutionary biology. That is what
assumptions are all about. Even our assumptions are
usually about very high-order phenomena, which themselves
would require hefty assumption sets to explain. I do not
see the introduction of emergent properties [note that
this is VERY different from the notion of emergent
systems] as introducing either mystery or vitalism into
theory. Pressure, for example, is an emergent property of
a collection of atoms, which is not definable for a
single atom in isolation. Would you say that introducing
the concept of pressure into physical theory invoked
additional mystery and "treads close to vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for -
there is no emergence here. The classical example,
introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the
liquid properties of water, which he said could not be
deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But
we do exactly that these days - you can model wuite
accurately the dynamics and microproperties of water on a
computer using only the known properties of hydrogen and
oxygen atoms. It only took a computer that was more
powerful than Mill had to hand.

"I think thou dost protest too much."

I am familiar with the two paradigmatic examples of
emergence that you claim fall short, but your claim seems to
me to either be patently false, or you are failing to
appreciate the additional information that you have folded
into the reductionistic view. I contradiction to your
claims, I think it has become increasingly clear that
cognition cannot be understood at the level of the neuron,
and that the properties of water cannot be understood at the
level of the water molecule. Indeed, I think it has become
very clear that cognition is not even manifested in part at
the level of a single neuron, that the properties of water
(e.g., surface tension) are not even manifested in part by a
single water molecule, and that pressure is not even
manifested in part by single molecules. All of these
phenomena emerge through the interaction of parts at reduced
scales. It is utterly irrelevant that you may have a reductionistically-
based sense of understanding as to how the parts might
interact, and be able to explain the phenomena that emerge
in collections of interacting units. This is why I have
always shied away from unpredictability as part of the
definition of either emergence or complexity. Of course
these things are predictable, in principle, if you know
enough about the qualities of the interacting units and the
environmental context in which they are to interact. This is
why computational modeling is an effective way to study
emergence in complex systems.

Cheers,

Guy

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

in article [email hidden], Wirt
Atmar at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:

> Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
> philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
> mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
> process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.

[snip] I see vitalism as something to be explained by
science, rather than avoided as if it must represent a
falsehood. I suspect that the term "vitalism" connotes
different things for us.

Quoted message said:

I think you are anachronistically interpreting
"vitalism" the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
that a property occurs at a physical level or scale
which cannot be reduced to the properties of the
components. Hence, for example, consciousness is the
paradigmatic case of an emergent property, because it is
supposed to have features that cannot be explained as
the vector sum of all the dynamics of neurons and their
environmental inputs. But each new discovery shows this
to be false. Likewise with evolution. Each emergent
property turns out to be either a cause for a research
program to decompose it into its substrate, or can
already be explained that way. People who rest satisfied
with emergent properties do, indeed, tread close to
mysticism and vitalism.

Quoted message said:

I also take issue with your assertion that when
"emergent properties are introduced into a philosophy
of evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness
is simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost
always parts of our models, especially in the study of
such high-order phenomena as evolutionary biology.
That is what assumptions are all about. Even our
assumptions are usually about very high-order
phenomena, which themselves would require hefty
assumption sets to explain. I do not see the
introduction of emergent properties [note that this is
VERY different from the notion of emergent systems] as
introducing either mystery or vitalism into theory.
Pressure, for example, is an emergent property of a
collection of atoms, which is not definable for a
single atom in isolation. Would you say that
introducing the concept of pressure into physical
theory invoked additional mystery and "treads close to
vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for -
there is no emergence here. The classical example,
introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the
liquid properties of water, which he said could not be
deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But
we do exactly that these days - you can model quite
accurately the dynamics and microproperties of water on
a computer using only the known properties of hydrogen
and oxygen atoms. It only took a computer that was more
powerful than Mill had to hand.

I have no desire to defend Guy Hoelzer's reading of
"vitalism", but I do wish to take issue with John Wilkins'
reading of "emergentism". However, since John knows much
more about the history of the use of this word than I do,
prudence dictates that I should coin a new term for the
variant form of emergentism that I wish to defend.
Therefore, I will call myself an "emergence-oriented
reductionist". I suspect that most scientifically literate
persons interested in emergence adhere to this ideology.

An "emergence-oriented reductionist" definitely does NOT
believe that you cannot account for the emergent property
in terms of the properties of the system components and
their interactions. If an "emergent property" is
discovered that is not yet explained in those terms, then
that is motivation for the creation of a reductionist
research programme to find the missing explanation.

So far so good. This sense of emergence is legit so far as I
see. I would call this "emergencism" to distinguish it.

Quoted message said:

But if all "emergence" exists only to be explained away,
you may ask, why does the "emergence-oriented
reductionist" go out of his way to call attention to
"emergent properties"? Good question. The answer requires
that we consider a three-level description of a system.

Consider a top-level system S which can be decomposed into
mid-level subsystems M_sub_1, M_sub_2, ..., M_sub_i, ...
Suppose that there is a property S_EP that is emergent in
the sense that the explanation of S_EP is only possible
reductionistically by considering the properties of all
the M_sub_i subsystems AND their interactions.

Now, assume that the M_sub_i subsystems are further broken
down into lower-level subsystems L_sub_i_sub_j, and that
the properties of the mid-level subsystems (both emergent
and nonemergent) are reductionistically explained by the
low-level properties and their interactions.

The question now arises: can we eliminate the middle level
of subsystems and interactions from our explanatory
structure? In theory, this should be possible, as long as
we can come up with a way of describing all of the
interactions - M to M, L to L, and M to L - in the same
language. But, this attempt to translate all of the
interactions into a single low-level language may fail
because we have impoverished our descriptive vocabulary.
We have eliminated all of the properties that were
emergent at the mid-level! So, how do we translate the
original description of M to M interactions into
descriptions of L to L interactions?

At the very least, an "emergence-oriented reductionist"
views the task of eliminating explanatory level M with
distaste. On a day when he is feeling intransigent, he may
even claim that the elimination of the middle level of
explanation is impossible in principle.

So far you have explicated a position proposed by Alexander
Rosenberg. He claims that what makes (practical) science
emergencist (remember: my term, not his) is that we cannot
in practical terms do the computation that allows us to each
time deal with higher level phenomena. In effect, the
problem is not the ontology, but the epistemology - there is
insufficient time in the universe for the fastest computer
to do the reduction for each event or process that is
emergent in that way.

This is fine for me - if emergence is a fact about our
abilities to compute what we recognise at a particular
scale, then this is "harmless emergence". Emergencism is
fine. In fact, it is an epistemic necessity. If I want to
investigate psychological states, it is of no benefit to me
to have to wait until we know and can make the inferences
from the structure at the molecular level of the
neurological systems of humans. In fact, we'd also need to
incorporate a complete description of the environment in
which those systems were employed. It makes epistemic
economic sense to approach things at the relevant level.

That said, emergence is not an excuse for failing to go
looking at the componential makeup of the systems that
evidence that phenomenon in such a way that the phenomenon
is explained. If I find that people who use mercury in their
profession exhibit symptoms similar to schizophrenia, the
explanation is not complete until we know how mercuric oxide
(from memory) affects neuronal behaviour and neurochemical
production, and the like. Where we stop is a matter of
convenience, but no metaphysical conclusions can be drawn
from this, as is the case historically and contemporaneously
in emergen*t*ism.

Quoted message said:

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness of
water as an example of what I have just expounded. A
reductionist explanation of liquid water might postulate a
"fluid mosaic" model, with small domains of crystaline
water separated by boundary regions of gaseous water. The
dynamics is that water molecules are continually moving
from the crystaline phase to the gas phase and back. That
is, we have a three-level description - molecules,
crystaline domains, and the liquid system as a whole. And,
there is just no way to collapse this to a two-level
description and throw out the properties - emergent and
otherwise - of the middle level. Similarly, it would be
impossible to do a hydrodynamic model of stream flow at
the molecular level, because emergent properties of liquid
water (viscosity, surface tension, etc.) have been lost.

is the "no way" here a matter of computational limitations,
or are you claiming that there is no substrate-based
explanation of liquidity even for God?
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

I have snipped the following out of an interesting longer
post to clarify my position on this issue, which I think has
been unclear.

in article [email hidden], John Wilkins
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/10/04 8:37 AM:

Quoted message said:

That said, emergence is not an excuse for failing to go
looking at the componential makeup of the systems that
evidence that phenomenon in such a way that the phenomenon
is explained. If I find that people who use mercury in
their profession exhibit symptoms similar to
schizophrenia, the explanation is not complete until we
know how mercuric oxide (from memory) affects neuronal
behaviour and neurochemical production, and the like.
Where we stop is a matter of convenience, but no
metaphysical conclusions can be drawn from this, as is the
case historically and contemporaneously in emergen*t*ism.

I entirely agree that a complete understanding of any
phenomenon requires a balanced recognition of both bottom-
up (reductionistic) and top-down (holistic) effects. I have
never argued that reductionistic approaches are flawed, in
general, only that they are incomplete. I would differ with
the statements above only in the arbitrariness of the
reductionistic stopping point. I think that there is a
point at which the information return for drilling deeper
with reductionistic explanations of macroscopic phenomena
diminishes to virtually zero. I doubt, for example, that we
can learn ANYTHING at all about animal behavior by
improving our understanding of the nature of quarks. In my
experience it seems that a virtually complete
reductionistic understanding of a phenomenon rarely
requires drilling down more than one or two levels of
organization. I suspect the same can be said of drilling up
for the sources of top-down effects.

Cheers,

Guy

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria said:

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness of
water as an example of what I have just expounded. A
reductionist explanation of liquid water might postulate
a "fluid mosaic" model, with small domains

of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

crystaline water separated by boundary regions of
gaseous water. The dynamics is that water molecules are
continually moving from the crystaline phase to the gas
phase and back. That is, we have a three-level
description - molecules, crystaline domains, and the
liquid system as a whole. And, there is just no way to
collapse this to a two-level description and throw out
the properties - emergent and otherwise - of the middle
level. Similarly, it would be impossible to

do

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

a hydrodynamic model of stream flow at the molecular
level, because emergent properties of liquid water
(viscosity, surface tension, etc.) have been lost.

is the "no way" here a matter of computational
limitations, or are you claiming that there is no substrate-
based explanation of liquidity even for God?

In order to answer this question, I am going to have to make
some reductionist assumptions regarding God's mental
processes. I assume from the question that you will not
object to my assumption that God's mind can be modeled as
based on mechanisms similar to that of a human brain or a
digital computer, only bigger and faster.

Now, let us imagine a scientist (perhaps another god)
examining a trace of the neural firings of the original God
as she computes the consequences of the interactions of
10^23 water molecules using brute force epistemology. This
scientist will notice that the same microcomputation is
performed over and over. Investigating further, he will see
that this happens because certain hydrogen bonds between
molecules are particularly persistent. In fact, the set of
all hydrogen bond instances in God's computation can be
naturally divided into two subpopulations - the transient
ones and the persistent ones. Investigating further, the
scientist will see that the persistent hydrogen bonds (that
is, the patterns of repeat neuron firings in God's
computation) are caused by the existence of microcrystaline
arrays of molecules in the simulation.

Now I used the word "existence" here, which means that I am
trespassing from my starting domain of epistemology into the
more metaphysical domain of ontology. Be aware that I am
untrained in philosophy, so my terminology will probably not
be standard. But it seems to me that if a particular level
of explanation (my microcrystals) arises afresh in the
investigations of any epistemologist, then that level exists
ontologically. And in my example, I am claiming that they
arise even though an attempt was made to hide them in the
traces of a brute force molecular-level computation that did
not make use of that intermediate level.

So, yes, in the sense I have just explained, there is no way
to remove the middle level, even for God, assuming that God
submits her computations for peer review. I am claiming that
almost any epistemologist, even a god, will recognize that
the middle level of explanation is "really there"
ontologically.

Guy Hoelzer said:

Hi John, in article [email hidden],
John Wilkins at [email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04
9:07 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

Dear Wirt,

I am responding to a wonderful post of yours. You and I
are in extremely close agreement on these issues, in
general, but I want to "pick one nit" out of your post.
You and I have discovered our disagreement on this
particular issue before, but I thought it might be
useful to lay it out for discussion in sbe.

in article [email hidden], Wirt
Atmar at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:

> Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
> philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
> mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
> process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.

I often see the term "vitalism" used in this way (the
way I think you are using it), as a rhetorical
punishment for perceived false logic, or warning to
avoid this direction in our modeling of nature. I don't
understand this position. I see vitalism as something
to be explained by science, rather than avoided as if
it must represent a falsehood. I suspect that the term
"vitalism" connotes different things for us. To me it
connotes an actively driven system that behaves in ways
that maximize its functional effectiveness and
persistence. Life certainly does this, as well as any
dissipative system (sensu Prigogine).

Vital fluids, interior molds, elan vital, entelechies
and the like postulate an occult force as an
explanation. When the mechanisms of reproduction, growth
and metabolism were unknown, it might have been
worthwhile to postulate them, but now it is merely
mysticism. "Vitalism" is the theory that there is
something qualitatively different *at every level*
between life and nonlife - the vital force must explain
why cells divide, why organisms grow, why they react to
stimuli. But we know why they do these things, and there
is no non-physical remainder left over to explain. I
think you are anachronistically interpreting "vitalism"
the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
that a property occurs at a physical level or scale
which cannot be reduced to the properties of the
components. Hence, for example, consciousness is the
paradigmatic case of an emergent property, because it is
supposed to have features that cannot be explained as
the vector sum of all the dynamics of neurons and their
environmental inputs. But each new discovery shows this
to be false. Likewise with evolution. Each emergent
property turns out to be either a cause for a research
program to decompose it into its substrate, or can
already be explained that way. People who rest satisfied
with emergent properties do, indeed, tread close to
mysticism and vitalism.

I strongly disagree, and I don't see anything here other
than an unfounded claim. I see and appreciate the
historical and philosophical baggage associated with the
term "vitalism." I guess I need a different term to label
the kinds of physical systems I described above. How would
you feel about calling them "energetic."

Now *that* I have no quibble with.

I apologise for being rabidly historical about these things.
"Emergence" arose in a context (which, as it happens, was
evolution, despite the ahistorical usage of computer
scientists). So, too, did "vitalism". These terms mean,
refer to, or imply a set of claims in the discourse I engage
in. These intensions are false. So when you use them, you
will guarantee a reaction to me.

I don't expect scientists to be historians, and it is a
byword that they are not very good at it (being rather
involved in the debates they report on), so when I see a
misused term, or someone uses a historical term that refers
to a dead theory, I will respond.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I also take issue with your assertion that when
"emergent properties are introduced into a philosophy
of evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness
is simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost
always parts of our models, especially in the study of
such high-order phenomena as evolutionary biology. That
is what assumptions are all about. Even our assumptions
are usually about very high-order phenomena, which
themselves would require hefty assumption sets to
explain. I do not see the introduction of emergent
properties [note that this is VERY different from the
notion of emergent systems] as introducing either
mystery or vitalism into theory. Pressure, for example,
is an emergent property of a collection of atoms, which
is not definable for a single atom in isolation. Would
you say that introducing the concept of pressure into
physical theory invoked additional mystery and "treads
close to vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for -
there is no emergence here. The classical example,
introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the
liquid properties of water, which he said could not be
deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But
we do exactly that these days - you can model wuite
accurately the dynamics and microproperties of water on
a computer using only the known properties of hydrogen
and oxygen atoms. It only took a computer that was more
powerful than Mill had to hand.

"I think thou dost protest too much."

I've had these debates with many folk. It strikes me that
there is a widely held view that is the "intuitive" default
account, and it's wrong,. philosophically and, I believe,
scientifically.

Quoted message said:

I am familiar with the two paradigmatic examples of
emergence that you claim fall short, but your claim seems
to me to either be patently false, or you are failing to
appreciate the additional information that you have folded
into the reductionistic view. I contradiction to your
claims, I think it has become increasingly clear that
cognition cannot be understood at the level of the neuron,
and that the properties of water cannot be understood at
the level of the water molecule. Indeed, I think it has
become very

Allow me to interrupt for a second. It is a common
criticism of "reductionism" that they must insist that we
refer *only* to the components of an entity to explain its
behavior. This is both false, as you note, and unnecessary.
A *full* description of a system must take account of both
the componential properties *and also* the initial and
boundary conditions. So cognition must involve also an
account of the past history of the neurones, the inputs
they have received and are receiving (both sensory and
cultural), and of course the evolutionary heritage of the
body that incorporates them.

Quoted message said:

clear that cognition is not even manifested in part at the
level of a single neuron, that the properties of water
(e.g., surface tension) are not even manifested in part by
a single water molecule, and that pressure is not even
manifested in part by single molecules. All of these
phenomena emerge

As to water, the microstructure of water is eminently
computable, and it generates surface tension effects as well
as the other factors of solutes and the like. It's an
exciting (and beautifully reductionistic) field.

Quoted message said:

through the interaction of parts at reduced scales. It is
utterly irrelevant that you may have a reductionistically-
based sense of understanding as to how the parts might
interact, and be able to explain the phenomena that emerge
in collections of interacting units. This is why I have
always shied away from unpredictability as part of the
definition of either emergence or complexity. Of course
these things are predictable, in principle, if you know
enough about the qualities of the interacting units and
the environmental context in which they are to interact.
This is why computational modeling is an effective way to
study emergence in complex systems.

Then your emergence = my reduction.

A few words on what "reduction" *really* means. It applies
to theories - take T1 as the theory to be reduced (the
reductee), and T2 as the reducing theory (the reducer).

T1 reduces to T2 just so long as all the events, entities
and processes of T1 are covered by the events, entities and
processes of T2 without remainder. Clearly, for example,
"genetic reductionism" is nothing of the kind - it is merely
a claim that behavioural and phenotypic traits can be
explained with reference to genetic effects, but nobody
thinks either that either the traits form a "theory" or that
genes act on their own (Dawkinsian rhetoric
notwithstanding). The problem with genetic "reductionism" is
that the scope of the explanation is broader than some think
the data warrant, and that it is guided by a misleading
metaphor and so on.

If I explain the properties of water by a mathematical model
that contains only the known properties of electrons, atoms
and elements, then I *have* reduced the liquidity of water
to those components, even if I need to also add boundary
conditions for the shape of the container, the pressure and
composition of the air, and so on.

Quoted message said:

Cheers,

Guy

--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria said:

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness
of water as an example of what I have just expounded.
A reductionist explanation of liquid water might
postulate a "fluid mosaic" model, with small domains
of crystaline water separated by boundary regions of
gaseous water. The dynamics is that water molecules
are continually moving from the crystaline phase to
the gas phase and back. That is, we have a three-level
description - molecules, crystaline domains, and the
liquid system as a whole. And, there is just no way to
collapse this to a two-level description and throw out
the properties - emergent and otherwise - of the
middle level. Similarly, it would be impossible to do
a hydrodynamic model of stream flow at the molecular
level, because emergent properties of liquid water
(viscosity, surface tension, etc.) have been lost.

is the "no way" here a matter of computational
limitations, or are you claiming that there is no substrate-
based explanation of liquidity even for God?

In order to answer this question, I am going to have to
make some reductionist assumptions regarding God's mental
processes. I assume from the question that you will not
object to my assumption that God's mind can be modeled as
based on mechanisms similar to that of a human brain or a
digital computer, only bigger and faster.

Yes. An omnicompetent scientist...

Quoted message said:

Now, let us imagine a scientist (perhaps another god)
examining a trace of the neural firings of the original
God as she computes the consequences of the interactions
of 10^23 water molecules using brute force epistemology.
This scientist will notice that the same microcomputation
is performed over and over. Investigating further, he will
see that this happens because certain hydrogen bonds
between molecules are particularly persistent. In fact,
the set of all hydrogen bond instances in God's
computation can be naturally divided into two
subpopulations - the transient ones and the persistent
ones. Investigating further, the scientist will see that
the persistent hydrogen bonds (that is, the patterns of
repeat neuron firings in God's computation) are caused by
the existence of microcrystaline arrays of molecules in
the simulation.

Now I used the word "existence" here, which means that I
am trespassing from my starting domain of epistemology
into the more metaphysical domain of ontology. Be aware
that I am untrained in philosophy, so my terminology will
probably not be standard. But it seems to me that if a
particular level of explanation (my microcrystals) arises
afresh in the investigations of any epistemologist, then
that level exists ontologically. And in my example, I am
claiming that they arise even though an attempt was made
to hide them in the traces of a brute force molecular-
level computation that did not make use of that
intermediate level.

So, yes, in the sense I have just explained, there is no
way to remove the middle level, even for God, assuming
that God submits her computations for peer review. I am
claiming that almost any epistemologist, even a god, will
recognize that the middle level of explanation is "really
there" ontologically.

Ummm... you missed your calling. However, unless you make
the water bonds in our sample dependent upon the neural
activity of our Superscientist, the case is not analogous.
But at no point do I insist that the intermediate steps or
levels are not ontologically there. They must be there - if
the lower level phenomena that comprise the higher level
phenomena exist, then so too do all combinations of them.

What I am asking here is this: If liquidity exists (and I
assume it does) is there any aspect of it that remains
uncaptured by a model composed solely of [representations
of] water molecules, and the attendent atomic and subatomic
particles?
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

Hi John, in article
[email hidden], John

Wilkins at

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04 9:07 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote:

[snippage] ....

Quoted message said:

Allow me to interrupt for a second. It is a common

criticism of

Quoted message said:

"reductionism" that they must insist that we refer *only*

to the

Quoted message said:

components of an entity to explain its behavior. This is

both false, as

Quoted message said:

you note, and unnecessary. A *full* description of a

system must take

Quoted message said:

account of both the componential properties *and also* the

initial and

Quoted message said:

boundary conditions. So cognition must involve also an

account of the

Quoted message said:

past history of the neurones, the inputs they have

received and are

Quoted message said:

receiving (both sensory and cultural), and of course the

evolutionary

Quoted message said:

heritage of the body that incorporates them.

Quoted message said:

clear that cognition is not even manifested in part at

the level of a single

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

neuron, that the properties of water (e.g., surface

tension) are not even

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

manifested in part by a single water molecule, and that

pressure is not even

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

manifested in part by single molecules. All of these

phenomena emerge

Quoted message said:

As to water, the microstructure of water is eminently

computable, and it

Quoted message said:

generates surface tension effects as well as the other

factors of

Quoted message said:

solutes and the like. It's an exciting (and beautifully

reductionistic)

Quoted message said:

field.

Quoted message said:

through the interaction of parts at reduced scales. It

is utterly

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

irrelevant that you may have a reductionistically-based

sense of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

understanding as to how the parts might interact, and be

able to explain the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

phenomena that emerge in collections of interacting

units. This is why I

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

have always shied away from unpredictability as part of

the definition of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

either emergence or complexity. Of course these things

are predictable, in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

principle, if you know enough about the qualities of the

interacting units

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

and the environmental context in which they are to

interact. This is why

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

computational modeling is an effective way to study

emergence in complex

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

systems.

Then your emergence = my reduction.

[snip]

I also agree that in talking about "complexity,"
"emergence," and even reductionism, one should shy-away from
ideas of unpredictability as a defining factor and
concentrate on "in-principle."

One little note to your examples of neurons and the micro-
structure of water though. While it is easy to say that the
"boundary conditions" in reductionism need to be taken
account of, I'd just like to emphasize that this is not at
all so easy in the real world--certainly not when there are
very many factors, and/or where a number of them are not
even imagined.

Taking the water example, all the reductionist theory in the
world on molecular water doesn't help when your water has a
unknown trace of sodium metal dropped in it--not without a
whole lot of added theory one had not anticipated relating
to other possible elements, compounds, substances, (or a
zillion other things,) and unknown conditions present that
are a factor.

Similarly for the case of neurons, one has to at least
provide for all the possible different variations in
_function_ under a variety of differing
conditions/circumstances...or again, the presence of a
zillion other substances which may, or _may not_ be present
at a given time, viz. biochemicals such as known or
unidentified neurotransmitters.

My only point is neither the Holistic nor the Reductionism
approach are always simple--and both need to be used in
theoretical research, with a careful determination of the
_all_ the important factors that affect the process(s) under
consideration. Also, _function_ under different
circumstances, is extremely important. As always though, the
devil is in the details. ...tonyC

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Cheers,

Guy

--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with

their

Quoted message said:

children" --Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February

22, 1857

Perplexed in Peoria <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Reductionism, as it is currently used IMHO, is a
philosophy of science based on the assumption that
causation always and only flows from the bottom up. The
reductionistic paradigm in science is devoted to
drilling down in scale to discover the causes of
macroscopic phenomena. A reductionist never looks up for
sources of causation, because they believe that things
at larger scales than the one they study are merely
consequences of what they are already studying.

I'm not so sure that the misguided masses are quite so
deluded as you seem to think they are. [...]

IMO, Guy's characterisation is reasonable - and doesn't
describe anything misguided.

The reductionists are correct in the views Guy attributes to
them - and much of the (immense) power of reductionism comes
from that.

The problem with exculsively following reductionism is not
that causation happens in other ways - but rather that
reductionistic explanations can rapidly become very complex
and unweildy when dealing with large composite structures.

When this happens it may be time to forget about the details
- and go for an explanation of the phenomenon on the basis
of entities at a higher level.

Quoted message said:

In this, and in other matters, I think that it is useful
for anyone thinking about causation to ponder Aristotle's
thoughts on the subject. Efficient, material, formal, and
final causation can usefully be distinguished, and people
who wish to restrict the direction of causal flow in their
models would do well to treat each type of causation
separately. For example, the "central dogma" of molecular
biology restricts the flow of formal cause, but it says
nothing about the flow of efficient cause. And in
engineered systems, which are almost always subject to
reductionism, final cause usually flows down.

The reductionists would probably say that there's no such
thing as a "final cause".

What /appear/ to be final causes are the conesquences of
thoughts in the minds of individuals who evolved the
capability of building models of the future on the basis of
their past experiences. If you look in some detail at the
flow of causation, it is efficient - not final - i.e.:

``The story is then, that the world is governed by "laws of
nature", a universal structure of efficient causation.
Things that happen can be explained, in the efficient sense,
in terms of this framework of law. There is however no final
causation - nothing can be explained as being for anything
else. In this sense, things just happen.''

Biology makes it *look* as though there are final causes -
as though there is purpose and function in the world - but
if there's any support for the idea from physics, it has yet
to be established.

One thing that would give the world at least a proximal
purpose is if it turns out to be a large genetic algorithm -
built by the maker of the world and whose purpose is to
optimise some complicated function for them.

While at the moment, it might look like a rather wasteful
effort, if life is destined to invade the relam of the small
- and spread throughout space - then it may actually come to
utilise all the available resources.

If such a scenario pans out, then maybe the existence of
final causes as a mode of explanation will need to be
reconsidered by the reductionists.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Phil Roberts, Jr. <[email hidden]> wrote or quoted:

Quoted message said:

Even Douglas Hofstadter (a hard assed mechanistic
materialist if there ever was one) has had second thoughts
on such matters:

The only way to explain G's [G = Godel sentence] non-
theoremhood is to discover the notion of Godel-
numbering and view TNT [or Peano arithmetic] on an
entirely different level. It is not that it is just
difficult and complicated to write out the explanation
on the TNT-level; it is IMPOSSIBLE [my emphasis]. Such
an explanation simply does not exist. There is, on the
high level, a kind of eplanatory power which simply is
lacking, in principle, on the TNT-level. G's non-
theoremhood is, so to speak, an INTRINSICALLY HIGH-
LEVEL FACT. It is my suspicion that this is the case
for ALL undecidable propositions, that is to say:
every undecidable proposition is actually a Godel
sentence, asserting its own nontheoremhood in some
system via some code.

Looked at this way, Godel's proof suggests -- though
by no means does it prove! -- that there could be some
high-level way of viewing the mind/brain, involving
concepts which do not appear on lower levels, and that
this level might have explanatory power that does not
exist -- not even in principle -- on lower levels. It
would mean that some facts could be explained on the
high level quite easily, but not on lower levels AT
ALL. No matter how long and cumbersome a low-level
statement were made, it would not explain the
phenomena in question. It is analgous to the fact
that, if you make derivation after derivation in TNT
[or Peano arithmetic], no matter how long and
cumbersome you make them, you will never come up with
one for G [the Godel sentence] -- despite the fact
that on a higher level, you can SEE that G is true.

What might such high-level concepts be? It has been
proposed for eons, by various holistically or
"soulistically" inclined scientists and humanists that
CONSCIOUSNESS is a phenomenon that escapes explanation
in terms of brain-components; so here is a candidate
at least. There is also the ever- puzzling notion of
FREE WILL. So perhaps these qualities could be
"emergent" in the sense of requiring explanations
which cannot be furnished by the physiology alone.
(Douglas Hofstadter, GEB)

I too would label DH as a hard-headed materialist - but
these paragraphs do appear to show some slight wavering :-(

He tries to draw an analogy between:

formal propositions ... and Godel sentences;

...and...

physiology ... and consciousness.

Any analogy in this area seems decidedly vague, wooly and
unconvincing.
--
__________
|im |yler timtyler.orgtimtyler.orgOpen ↗ [email hidden] Remove
lock to reply.

Dear John,

in article [email hidden], John Wilkins at
[email hidden] wrote on 5/11/04 1:24 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

Hi John, in article [email hidden],
John Wilkins at [email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04
9:07 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote:

> Dear Wirt,
>
> I am responding to a wonderful post of yours. You and I
> are in extremely close agreement on these issues, in
> general, but I want to "pick one nit" out of your post.
> You and I have discovered our disagreement on this
> particular issue before, but I thought it might be
> useful to lay it out for discussion in sbe.
>
> in article [email hidden], Wirt
> Atmar at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:
>
>> Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
>> philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
>> mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
>> process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.
>
> I often see the term "vitalism" used in this way (the
> way I think you are using it), as a rhetorical
> punishment for perceived false logic, or warning to
> avoid this direction in our modeling of nature. I don't
> understand this position. I see vitalism as something
> to be explained by science, rather than avoided as if
> it must represent a falsehood. I suspect that the term
> "vitalism" connotes different things for us. To me it
> connotes an actively driven system that behaves in ways
> that maximize its functional effectiveness and
> persistence. Life certainly does this, as well as any
> dissipative system (sensu Prigogine).

Vital fluids, interior molds, elan vital, entelechies
and the like postulate an occult force as an
explanation. When the mechanisms of reproduction, growth
and metabolism were unknown, it might have been
worthwhile to postulate them, but now it is merely
mysticism. "Vitalism" is the theory that there is
something qualitatively different *at every level*
between life and nonlife - the vital force must explain
why cells divide, why organisms grow, why they react to
stimuli. But we know why they do these things, and there
is no non-physical remainder left over to explain. I
think you are anachronistically interpreting "vitalism"
the term.

Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
that a property occurs at a physical level or scale
which cannot be reduced to the properties of the
components. Hence, for example, consciousness is the
paradigmatic case of an emergent property, because it is
supposed to have features that cannot be explained as
the vector sum of all the dynamics of neurons and their
environmental inputs. But each new discovery shows this
to be false. Likewise with evolution. Each emergent
property turns out to be either a cause for a research
program to decompose it into its substrate, or can
already be explained that way. People who rest satisfied
with emergent properties do, indeed, tread close to
mysticism and vitalism.

I strongly disagree, and I don't see anything here other
than an unfounded claim. I see and appreciate the
historical and philosophical baggage associated with the
term "vitalism." I guess I need a different term to label
the kinds of physical systems I described above. How
would you feel about calling them "energetic."

Now *that* I have no quibble with.

I apologise for being rabidly historical about these
things. "Emergence" arose in a context (which, as it
happens, was evolution, despite the ahistorical usage of
computer scientists). So, too, did "vitalism". These terms
mean, refer to, or imply a set of claims in the discourse
I engage in. These intensions are false. So when you use
them, you will guarantee a reaction to me.

I don't expect scientists to be historians, and it is a
byword that they are not very good at it (being rather
involved in the debates they report on), so when I see a
misused term, or someone uses a historical term that
refers to a dead theory, I will respond.

Thanks. We count on folks like you to set us straight on
these things.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> I also take issue with your assertion that when
> "emergent properties are introduced into a philosophy
> of evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness
> is simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost
> always parts of our models, especially in the study of
> such high-order phenomena as evolutionary biology. That
> is what assumptions are all about. Even our assumptions
> are usually about very high-order phenomena, which
> themselves would require hefty assumption sets to
> explain. I do not see the introduction of emergent
> properties [note that this is VERY different from the
> notion of emergent systems] as introducing either
> mystery or vitalism into theory. Pressure, for example,
> is an emergent property of a collection of atoms, which
> is not definable for a single atom in isolation. Would
> you say that introducing the concept of pressure into
> physical theory invoked additional mystery and "treads
> close to vitalism?"

The primary claim made by emergentism is that you cannot
account for the property in terms of its parts without
remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted for -
there is no emergence here. The classical example,
introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of Logic, is the
liquid properties of water, which he said could not be
deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But
we do exactly that these days - you can model wuite
accurately the dynamics and microproperties of water on
a computer using only the known properties of hydrogen
and oxygen atoms. It only took a computer that was more
powerful than Mill had to hand.

"I think thou dost protest too much."

I've had these debates with many folk. It strikes me that
there is a widely held view that is the "intuitive"
default account, and it's wrong,. philosophically and, I
believe, scientifically.

Quoted message said:

I am familiar with the two paradigmatic examples of
emergence that you claim fall short, but your claim seems
to me to either be patently false, or you are failing to
appreciate the additional information that you have
folded into the reductionistic view. I contradiction to
your claims, I think it has become increasingly clear
that cognition cannot be understood at the level of the
neuron, and that the properties of water cannot be
understood at the level of the water molecule. Indeed, I
think it has become very

Allow me to interrupt for a second. It is a common
criticism of "reductionism" that they must insist that we
refer *only* to the components of an entity to explain its
behavior. This is both false, as you note, and
unnecessary. A *full* description of a system must take
account of both the componential properties *and also* the
initial and boundary conditions. So cognition must involve
also an account of the past history of the neurones, the
inputs they have received and are receiving (both sensory
and cultural), and of course the evolutionary heritage of
the body that incorporates them.

We disagree on the meaning of reductionism, but more on
that later...

I agree completely that the qualities of the components,
environmental constraints (e.g., boundary conditions), and
the momentum of the system (its past history) are all
important aspects of a comprehensive understanding. I'm not
so sure about initial conditions, but I also think that you
have left out a key factor that is fundamental to the
complexity view. That is the shape and scale of the
interaction network. This is important because it is the
primary determinant of whether higher order processes (e.g.,
mass action effects) will tend to manifest as
energy/information flow through it. This is the source of
top-down effect providing the organization in self-
organization.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

clear that cognition is not even manifested in part at
the level of a single neuron, that the properties of
water (e.g., surface tension) are not even manifested in
part by a single water molecule, and that pressure is not
even manifested in part by single molecules. All of these
phenomena emerge

As to water, the microstructure of water is eminently
computable, and it generates surface tension effects as
well as the other factors of solutes and the like. It's an
exciting (and beautifully reductionistic) field.

I have no doubt that it is computable. I am persuaded by the
notion of the computational universe, which proposes that
the whole universe is effectively a computer carrying out
one large computation through its physics; so I would be
surprised if anything that happens in the universe was non-
computable.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

through the interaction of parts at reduced scales. It is
utterly irrelevant that you may have a reductionistically-
based sense of understanding as to how the parts might
interact, and be able to explain the phenomena that
emerge in collections of interacting units. This is why I
have always shied away from unpredictability as part of
the definition of either emergence or complexity. Of
course these things are predictable, in principle, if you
know enough about the qualities of the interacting units
and the environmental context in which they are to
interact. This is why computational modeling is an
effective way to study emergence in complex systems.

Then your emergence = my reduction.

Well, I feel rather certain that my emergence is also the
emergence of most other proponents of the complexity
paradigm, and almost all would disagree with you about
reductionism.

Quoted message said:

A few words on what "reduction" *really* means. It applies
to theories - take T1 as the theory to be reduced (the
reductee), and T2 as the reducing theory (the reducer).

T1 reduces to T2 just so long as all the events, entities
and processes of T1 are covered by the events, entities
and processes of T2 without remainder.

This makes little sense to me as a meaning for
"reductionism". I am sure that you have a good historical
reason to define it this way, but this is a topic about
which I have had extensive conversations with philosophers
and scientists from several disciplines, and I have never
run into these semantics before. Unlike with the meaning of
"vitalism," a word I generally avoided, I am not persuaded
by your definition of "reductionism," even if it accurately
represents the original meaning.

Your definition seems inappropriate to me because T1 must be
a subset of T2, so T2 must be larger than T1. A small thing
should not be said to REDUCE to a larger thing.

Reductionism, as it is currently used IMHO, is a philosophy
of science based on the assumption that causation always and
only flows from the bottom up. The reductionistic paradigm
in science is devoted to drilling down in scale to discover
the causes of macroscopic phenomena. A reductionist never
looks up for sources of causation, because they believe that
things at larger scales than the one they study are merely
consequences of what they are already studying. The
reductionistic program is to continue drilling deeper and
deeper until we find the bottom (no more smaller turtles).
Adherence to this kind of reductionism is reflected in the
widespread misconception that Biology can be REDUCED to
Chemistry, which can be REDUCED to Physics.

Quoted message said:

Clearly, for example, "genetic reductionism" is nothing of
the kind - it is merely a claim that behavioural and
phenotypic traits can be explained with reference to
genetic effects, but nobody thinks either that either the
traits form a "theory" or that genes act on their own
(Dawkinsian rhetoric notwithstanding). The problem with
genetic "reductionism" is that the scope of the
explanation is broader than some think the data warrant,
and that it is guided by a misleading metaphor and so on.

Right. I think this example supports my contention that
"reductionism" has taken on a meaning quite different from
the one you are holding onto.

Quoted message said:

If I explain the properties of water by a mathematical
model that contains only the known properties of
electrons, atoms and elements, then I *have* reduced
the liquidity of water to those components, even if I
need to also add boundary conditions for the shape of
the container, the pressure and composition of the air,
and so on.

I would distinguish a mathematical model from a
computational one, and I doubt that a purely mathematical
model could effectively model the properties of water. I
think this would be impossible because qualities like
surface tension emerge through localized interactions among
water molecules. Every molecule has a unique interaction
neighborhood, so a mathematical model of water would have to
represent each molecule with a unique parameter. Mean field
approximations would obliterate the global structure that
emerges from the localization of interaction. To avoid
confusion, note that I am not saying mathematical models
cannot be constructed to estimate something like the extent
of surface tension in a liquid. I am saying that such models
would necessarily be both error prone (hence estimation) and
heuristically misleading.

Cheers,

Guy

[email hidden] (John Wilkins) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness of
water as an example of what I have just expounded. A
reductionist explanation of liquid water might postulate
a "fluid mosaic" model, with small domains of crystaline
water separated by boundary regions of gaseous water.
The dynamics is that water molecules are continually
moving from the crystaline phase to the gas phase and
back. That is, we have a three-level description -
molecules, crystaline domains, and the liquid system as
a whole. And, there is just no way to collapse this to a
two-level description and throw out the properties -
emergent and otherwise - of the middle level. Similarly,
it would be impossible to do a hydrodynamic model of
stream flow at the molecular level, because emergent
properties of liquid water (viscosity, surface tension,
etc.) have been lost.

Quoted message said:

is the "no way" here a matter of computational
limitations, or are you claiming that there is no substrate-
based explanation of liquidity even for God?

James Gleick, in Chaos, relates:

There was a story about the quantum theorist Werner
Heisenberg, on his deathbed, declaring that he will have two
questions for God: why relativity, and why turbulence.
Heisenberg says, "I really think He may have an answer to
the first question."

Yours,

Bill Morse

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Reductionism, as it is currently used IMHO, is a
philosophy of science

based

Quoted message said:

on the assumption that causation always and only flows
from the bottom up. The reductionistic paradigm in science
is devoted to drilling down in

scale

Quoted message said:

to discover the causes of macroscopic phenomena. A
reductionist never

looks

Quoted message said:

up for sources of causation, because they believe that
things at larger scales than the one they study are merely
consequences of what they are already studying.

I'm not so sure that the misguided masses are quite so
deluded as you seem to think they are. However, change
"causation always and only flows from the bottom up" to
"explanation always and only flows from the bottom up", and
you may be close to enunciating a sociological truth.

(Incidentally, your misinterpretation provides yet another
another illustration of the importance of a methodological
rule that I will call the "Peorian guide for the perplexed".
The rule is: Never allow the opponents of a doctrine to
define the doctrine - they will inevitably distort it. John
Wilkins, please take note.)

In this, and in other matters, I think that it is useful for
anyone thinking about causation to ponder Aristotle's
thoughts on the subject. Efficient, material, formal, and
final causation can usefully be distinguished, and people
who wish to restrict the direction of causal flow in their
models would do well to treat each type of causation
separately. For example, the "central dogma" of molecular
biology restricts the flow of formal cause, but it says
nothing about the flow of efficient cause. And in engineered
systems, which are almost always subject to reductionism,
final cause usually flows down.

Quoted message said:

The reductionistic program is to continue drilling deeper
and deeper until we find the bottom (no more smaller
turtles).

Your cosmology is very different from mine. In my cosmology,
the turtles down near the bottom are BIG suckers.

Guy Hoelzer said:

Dear John,

in article [email hidden], John Wilkins
at [email hidden] wrote on 5/11/04 1:24 PM:

Quoted message said:

Guy Hoelzer said:

Hi John, in article [email hidden],
John Wilkins at [email hidden] wrote on 5/7/04
9:07 PM:

> Guy Hoelzer <[email hidden]> wrote:
>
>> Dear Wirt,
>>
>> I am responding to a wonderful post of yours. You and
>> I are in extremely close agreement on these issues,
>> in general, but I want to "pick one nit" out of your
>> post. You and I have discovered our disagreement on
>> this particular issue before, but I thought it might
>> be useful to lay it out for discussion in sbe.
>>
>> in article [email hidden], Wirt
>> Atmar at [email hidden] wrote on 5/4/04 7:54 PM:
>>
>>> Whenever emergent properties are introduced into a
>>> philosophy of evolutionary design, a higher-order
>>> mysteriousness is simultaneously introduced into the
>>> process that treads dangerously close to vitalism.
>>
>> I often see the term "vitalism" used in this way (the
>> way I think you are using it), as a rhetorical
>> punishment for perceived false logic, or warning to
>> avoid this direction in our modeling of nature. I
>> don't understand this position. I see vitalism as
>> something to be explained by science, rather than
>> avoided as if it must represent a falsehood. I
>> suspect that the term "vitalism" connotes different
>> things for us. To me it connotes an actively driven
>> system that behaves in ways that maximize its
>> functional effectiveness and persistence. Life
>> certainly does this, as well as any dissipative
>> system (sensu Prigogine).
>
> Vital fluids, interior molds, elan vital, entelechies
> and the like postulate an occult force as an
> explanation. When the mechanisms of reproduction,
> growth and metabolism were unknown, it might have been
> worthwhile to postulate them, but now it is merely
> mysticism. "Vitalism" is the theory that there is
> something qualitatively different *at every level*
> between life and nonlife - the vital force must
> explain why cells divide, why organisms grow, why they
> react to stimuli. But we know why they do these
> things, and there is no non-physical remainder left
> over to explain. I think you are anachronistically
> interpreting "vitalism" the term.
>
> Wirt is exactly right about emergentism. It is a claim
> that a property occurs at a physical level or scale
> which cannot be reduced to the properties of the
> components. Hence, for example, consciousness is the
> paradigmatic case of an emergent property, because it
> is supposed to have features that cannot be explained
> as the vector sum of all the dynamics of neurons and
> their environmental inputs. But each new discovery
> shows this to be false. Likewise with evolution. Each
> emergent property turns out to be either a cause for a
> research program to decompose it into its substrate,
> or can already be explained that way. People who rest
> satisfied with emergent properties do, indeed, tread
> close to mysticism and vitalism.

I strongly disagree, and I don't see anything here
other than an unfounded claim. I see and appreciate the
historical and philosophical baggage associated with
the term "vitalism." I guess I need a different term to
label the kinds of physical systems I described above.
How would you feel about calling them "energetic."

Now *that* I have no quibble with.

I apologise for being rabidly historical about these
things. "Emergence" arose in a context (which, as it
happens, was evolution, despite the ahistorical usage of
computer scientists). So, too, did "vitalism". These
terms mean, refer to, or imply a set of claims in the
discourse I engage in. These intensions are false. So
when you use them, you will guarantee a reaction to me.

I don't expect scientists to be historians, and it is a
byword that they are not very good at it (being rather
involved in the debates they report on), so when I see a
misused term, or someone uses a historical term that
refers to a dead theory, I will respond.

Thanks. We count on folks like you to set us straight on
these things.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> I also take issue with your assertion that when
>> "emergent properties are introduced into a philosophy
>> of evolutionary design, a higher-order mysteriousness
>> is simultaneously introduced." Mysteries are almost
>> always parts of our models, especially in the study
>> of such high-order phenomena as evolutionary biology.
>> That is what assumptions are all about. Even our
>> assumptions are usually about very high-order
>> phenomena, which themselves would require hefty
>> assumption sets to explain. I do not see the
>> introduction of emergent properties [note that this
>> is VERY different from the notion of emergent
>> systems] as introducing either mystery or vitalism
>> into theory. Pressure, for example, is an emergent
>> property of a collection of atoms, which is not
>> definable for a single atom in isolation. Would you
>> say that introducing the concept of pressure into
>> physical theory invoked additional mystery and
>> "treads close to vitalism?"
>
> The primary claim made by emergentism is that you
> cannot account for the property in terms of its parts
> without remainder. Pressure can indeed be so accounted
> for - there is no emergence here. The classical
> example, introduced by Mill in his 1837 System of
> Logic, is the liquid properties of water, which he
> said could not be deduced from the properties of
> hydrogen and oxygen. But we do exactly that these days
> - you can model wuite accurately the dynamics and
> microproperties of water on a computer using only the
> known properties of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It only
> took a computer that was more powerful than Mill had
> to hand.

"I think thou dost protest too much."

I've had these debates with many folk. It strikes me
that there is a widely held view that is the "intuitive"
default account, and it's wrong,. philosophically and, I
believe, scientifically.

Quoted message said:

I am familiar with the two paradigmatic examples of
emergence that you claim fall short, but your claim
seems to me to either be patently false, or you are
failing to appreciate the additional information that
you have folded into the reductionistic view. I
contradiction to your claims, I think it has become
increasingly clear that cognition cannot be understood
at the level of the neuron, and that the properties of
water cannot be understood at the level of the water
molecule. Indeed, I think it has become very

Allow me to interrupt for a second. It is a common
criticism of "reductionism" that they must insist that
we refer *only* to the components of an entity to
explain its behavior. This is both false, as you note,
and unnecessary. A *full* description of a system must
take account of both the componential properties *and
also* the initial and boundary conditions. So
cognition must involve also an account of the past
history of the neurones, the inputs they have received
and are receiving (both sensory and cultural), and of
course the evolutionary heritage of the body that
incorporates them.

We disagree on the meaning of reductionism, but more on
that later...

I agree completely that the qualities of the components,
environmental constraints (e.g., boundary conditions), and
the momentum of the system (its past history) are all
important aspects of a comprehensive understanding. I'm
not so sure about initial conditions, but I also think
that you have left out a key factor that is fundamental to
the complexity view. That is the shape and scale of the
interaction network. This is important because it is the
primary determinant of whether higher order processes
(e.g., mass action effects) will tend to manifest as
energy/information flow through it. This is the source of
top-down effect providing the organization in self-
organization.

A complete description includes, by implication, both scale
and shape; these are not add-ons, but fall out deductively
from that complete description.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

clear that cognition is not even manifested in part at
the level of a single neuron, that the properties of
water (e.g., surface tension) are not even manifested
in part by a single water molecule, and that pressure
is not even manifested in part by single molecules. All
of these phenomena emerge

As to water, the microstructure of water is eminently
computable, and it generates surface tension effects as
well as the other factors of solutes and the like. It's
an exciting (and beautifully reductionistic) field.

I have no doubt that it is computable. I am persuaded by
the notion of the computational universe, which proposes
that the whole universe is effectively a computer carrying
out one large computation through its physics; so I would
be surprised if anything that happens in the universe was
non-computable.

I should add the caveat here - "in-principle". But I *don't*
think the universe is a computer - it's just what it is by
nature; computation simply models the universe more or less.
The map is not the territory...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

through the interaction of parts at reduced scales. It
is utterly irrelevant that you may have a reductionistically-
based sense of understanding as to how the parts might
interact, and be able to explain the phenomena that
emerge in collections of interacting units. This is why
I have always shied away from unpredictability as part
of the definition of either emergence or complexity. Of
course these things are predictable, in principle, if
you know enough about the qualities of the interacting
units and the environmental context in which they are
to interact. This is why computational modeling is an
effective way to study emergence in complex systems.

Then your emergence = my reduction.

Well, I feel rather certain that my emergence is also the
emergence of most other proponents of the complexity
paradigm, and almost all would disagree with you about
reductionism.

Perhaps they would. Fifty million Frenchmen *can* be wrong.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

A few words on what "reduction" *really* means. It
applies to theories - take T1 as the theory to be
reduced (the reductee), and T2 as the reducing theory
(the reducer).

T1 reduces to T2 just so long as all the events,
entities and processes of T1 are covered by the events,
entities and processes of T2 without remainder.

This makes little sense to me as a meaning for
"reductionism". I am sure that you have a good historical
reason to define it this way, but this is a topic about
which I have had extensive conversations with philosophers
and scientists from several disciplines, and I have never
run into these semantics before. Unlike with the meaning
of "vitalism," a word I generally avoided, I am not
persuaded by your definition of "reductionism," even if it
accurately represents the original meaning.

The notion of theory reduction arose in just the sense in
which I give it in the 1950s and 60s, and the locus
classicus is

Nagel, E. (1961). The Structure of Science: Problems in the
Logic of Scientific Explanation. London, Routledge and
Kegan Paul.

Later discussions distinguish between microreduction and
macroreduction, and so on, but the implication is that
science is unified by reduction relations (usually that
physics is the basal theory).

Quoted message said:

Your definition seems inappropriate to me because T1 must
be a subset of T2, so T2 must be larger than T1. A small
thing should not be said to REDUCE to a larger thing.

Why? We can explain the subset of physics known as
ballistics (which covers only masses of a certain size under
particular conditions ) to general relativity, which covers
a lot more. This is reduction. It is the more restricted
thing that is reduced - just as Newtonian physics reduces to
Einsteinian, and that to quantum theory, and so on.

Quoted message said:

Reductionism, as it is currently used IMHO, is a
philosophy of science based on the assumption that
causation always and only flows from the bottom up. The
reductionistic paradigm in science is devoted to drilling
down in scale to discover the causes of macroscopic
phenomena. A reductionist never looks up for sources of
causation, because they believe that things at larger
scales than the one they study are merely consequences of
what they are already studying. The reductionistic program
is to continue drilling deeper and deeper until we find
the bottom (no more smaller turtles). Adherence to this
kind of reductionism is reflected in the widespread
misconception that Biology can be REDUCED to Chemistry,
which can be REDUCED to Physics.

This is neither clear to me, nor, I think, accurate.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Clearly, for example, "genetic reductionism" is nothing
of the kind - it is merely a claim that behavioural and
phenotypic traits can be explained with reference to
genetic effects, but nobody thinks either that either
the traits form a "theory" or that genes act on their
own (Dawkinsian rhetoric notwithstanding). The problem
with genetic "reductionism" is that the scope of the
explanation is broader than some think the data
warrant, and that it is guided by a misleading metaphor
and so on.

Right. I think this example supports my contention that
"reductionism" has taken on a meaning quite different from
the one you are holding onto.

Many people use it wrongly, sure. I mention genetic
reduction as an example of this misunderstanding.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If I explain the properties of water by a mathematical
model that contains only the known properties of
electrons, atoms and elements, then I *have* reduced the
liquidity of water to those components, even if I need
to also add boundary conditions for the shape of the
container, the pressure and composition of the air, and
so on.

I would distinguish a mathematical model from a
computational one, and I doubt that a purely mathematical
model could effectively model the properties of water. I
think this would be impossible because qualities like
surface tension emerge through localized interactions
among water molecules. Every molecule has a unique
interaction neighborhood, so a mathematical model of water
would have to represent each molecule with a unique
parameter. Mean field approximations would obliterate the
global structure that emerges from the localization of
interaction. To avoid confusion, note that I am not saying
mathematical models cannot be constructed to estimate
something like the extent of surface tension in a liquid.
I am saying that such models would necessarily be both
error prone (hence estimation) and heuristically
misleading.

A model that is mathematical is, by strict definition,
computational. Insert mentions of Universal Turing
Machines here...

But heuristics are a different matter. We *must* deal with
level-specific phenomena at or about their own terms, and
knowing *that* they reduce doesn't mean we *can* reduce
them. But once we said that we would never be able to
explain cellular behaviour in molecular terms, something
that I see done daily where I work.
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

William Morse said:

[email hidden] (John Wilkins) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Let us look at John's example of the emergent wetness
of water as an example of what I have just expounded. A
reductionist explanation of liquid water might
postulate a "fluid mosaic" model, with small domains of
crystaline water separated by boundary regions of
gaseous water. The dynamics is that water molecules are
continually moving from the crystaline phase to the gas
phase and back. That is, we have a three-level
description - molecules, crystaline domains, and the
liquid system as a whole. And, there is just no way to
collapse this to a two-level description and throw out
the properties - emergent and otherwise - of the middle
level. Similarly, it would be impossible to do a
hydrodynamic model of stream flow at the molecular
level, because emergent properties of liquid water
(viscosity, surface tension, etc.) have been lost.

Quoted message said:

is the "no way" here a matter of computational
limitations, or are you claiming that there is no substrate-
based explanation of liquidity even for God?

James Gleick, in Chaos, relates:

There was a story about the quantum theorist Werner
Heisenberg, on his deathbed, declaring that he will have
two questions for God: why relativity, and why turbulence.
Heisenberg says, "I really think He may have an answer to
the first question."

Just like a theoretical physicist, to think his own
conceptual limitations must be the same as a God's...

--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

What I am asking here is this: If liquidity exists (and I
assume it does) is there any aspect of it that remains
uncaptured by a model composed solely of [representations
of] water molecules, and the attendent atomic and
subatomic particles?

John,

Throw in the four forces of nature. You can't limit your
reduction to just the components - you must also take the
interactions between components into account. Change the
word "uncaptured" to "uncapturable", since we are not sure
the right model is present. No additional changes required.

I assent. There is no aspect that remains uncapturable. I am
a reductionist in that sense. (So, I suspect, is almost
every other poster to this group.)

John, I'm sure you have heard the old proverb saying that
"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
It is frequently cited in engineering circles as a warning
to specialists in some technology who seek to utilize their
expertise on inappropriate problems.

You sir, wield the philosopher's hammer. As part of your
training, you have learned to use this hammer against some
Very Bad Ideas that have been suggested by some fairly
intelligent people in the past. These exemplary historical
Very Bad Ideas are the nails that you were trained to attack
with your hammer.

While I very much admire your precision and your reverence
for the history of words and ideas, I do occasionally think
that you sometimes suspect the existence of nails where none
exist. Just an observation.

Thanks,

Jim ;-)

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

What I am asking here is this: If liquidity exists (and
I assume it does) is there any aspect of it that remains
uncaptured by a model composed solely of
[representations of] water molecules, and the attendent
atomic and subatomic particles?

John,

Throw in the four forces of nature. You can't limit your
reduction to just the components - you must also take the
interactions between components into account. Change the
word "uncaptured" to "uncapturable", since we are not sure
the right model is present. No additional changes
required.

I assent. There is no aspect that remains uncapturable. I
am a reductionist in that sense. (So, I suspect, is almost
every other poster to this group.)

You might be surprised at how many people who use the term
"emergence" tend to think it means that there is something
uncapturable by a (theoretically complete) lower-level
description.

Quoted message said:

John, I'm sure you have heard the old proverb saying that
"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail." It is frequently cited in engineering circles as a
warning to specialists in some technology who seek to
utilize their expertise on inappropriate problems.

You sir, wield the philosopher's hammer. As part of your
training, you have learned to use this hammer against some
Very Bad Ideas that have been suggested by some fairly
intelligent people in the past. These exemplary historical
Very Bad Ideas are the nails that you were trained to
attack with your hammer.

While I very much admire your precision and your reverence
for the history of words and ideas, I do occasionally
think that you sometimes suspect the existence of nails
where none exist. Just an observation.

Thanks,

Jim ;-)

Jim, you do me too much honour. I am neither terribly
precise nor such a good philosopher, but allow me to follow
up on an implication of what you said here.

I see what I do as a kind of Lockean "clearing the
undergrowth" program in the philosophy of science. I don't
do science myself, but I pay close attention to the ideas
and history of science when I consider how scientific
words are used.

I then try to apply basic logical and categorial precision
to the present use of words, because words carry
connotations (another logical term) fromthe past that
systematically mislead people. To achieve this, I try to
charitably interpret the words, and then deal with the
remainder of contradiction and amphiboly, using logic that
Aristotle would have recognised.

So my question is this: should science be freed from logical
coherence and consistency? Because if that is not a hammer
for all nails, I really do not know what might be, and that
is what you imply.

As to the notions of complexity, holism, group properties
and the like, they follow from simple logical considerations
of set theory or syllogistic logic (choose your poison - I
have a lot of respect for the traditional syllogisms), so I
think it appropriate to apply them here. If you all want me
to drop it, I shall. But I shall continue to think contrary
claims are mistaken :-)
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"Guy Hoelzer" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Reductionism, as it is currently used IMHO, is a
philosophy of sciencebased on the assumption that
causation always and only flows from the bottom up. The
reductionistic paradigm in science is devoted to
drilling down in scale to discover the causes of
macroscopic phenomena. A reductionist never looks up for
sources of causation, because they believe that things
at larger scales than the one they study are merely
consequences of what they are already studying.

I'm not so sure that the misguided masses are quite so
deluded as you seem to think they are. However, change
"causation always and only flows from the bottom up" to
"explanation always and only flows from the bottom up",
and you may be close to enunciating a sociological truth.

As in, this is (sociologically) true of the ways in which we
have previously explained things?

Quoted message said:

(Incidentally, your misinterpretation provides yet another
another illustration of the importance of a methodological
rule that I will call the "Peorian guide for the
perplexed". The rule is: Never allow the opponents of a
doctrine to define the doctrine - they will inevitably
distort it. John Wilkins, please take note.)

Oh, I have, don't worry.

Quoted message said:

In this, and in other matters, I think that it is useful
for anyone thinking about causation to ponder Aristotle's
thoughts on the subject. Efficient, material, formal, and
final causation can usefully be distinguished, and people
who wish to restrict the direction of causal flow in their
models would do well to treat each type of causation
separately. For example, the "central dogma" of molecular
biology restricts the flow of formal cause, but it says
nothing about the flow of efficient cause. And in
engineered systems, which are almost always subject to
reductionism, final cause usually flows down.

Quoted message said:

The reductionistic program is to continue drilling
deeper and deeper until we find the bottom (no more
smaller turtles).

Your cosmology is very different from mine. In my
cosmology, the turtles down near the bottom are BIG
suckers.

Oh, you read Pratchett too?
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au "I never meet anyone
who is not perplexed what to do with their children" --
Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Perplexed in Peoria said:

"John Wilkins" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

What I am asking here is this: If liquidity exists
(and I assume it does) is there any aspect of it that
remains uncaptured by a model composed solely of
[representations of] water molecules, and the
attendent atomic and subatomic particles?

John,

Throw in the four forces of nature. You can't limit your
reduction to just the components - you must also take
the interactions between components into account. Change
the word "uncaptured" to "uncapturable", since we are
not sure the right model is present. No additional
changes required.

I assent. There is no aspect that remains uncapturable.
I am a reductionist in that sense. (So, I suspect, is
almost every other poster to this group.)

You might be surprised at how many people who use the term
"emergence" tend to think it means that there is something
uncapturable by a (theoretically complete) lower-level
description.

Do you put yourself in that category?

I'd like to explore this further. Are the following people
committing a philosophical error? Do they believe in
emergence in the above sense? 1a. Someone who claims that
the final cause of an enzyme is uncapturable by a
theoretically complete lower-level description. 1b. Someone
who claims that the material or formal cause of an infant is
uncapturable at lower levels.
2. Someone who admires Coleridge's definition of life as "a
whole that is pre-supposed by all its parts".
3. Ilya Prigogine who claimed in some of his books that
Boltzman's reduction of thermodynamics to statistical
mechanics must be flawed and that the second law must be
fundamental or else a consequence of an unknown
fundamental law of nature.
4. Someone who claims that no reductionist explanation of
water's wetness is possible unless you postulate a "fifth
force" which is operative at mid-scale distances.
5. J.S. Mill, who claimed (correctly) that water's
properties could not be reduced to Newtonian mechanics
and Maxwell's electrodynamics.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

John, I'm sure you have heard the old proverb saying
that "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like
a nail." It is frequently cited in engineering circles
as a warning to specialists in some technology who seek
to utilize their expertise on inappropriate problems.

You sir, wield the philosopher's hammer. As part of your
training, you have learned to use this hammer against
some Very Bad Ideas that have been suggested by some
fairly intelligent people in the past. These exemplary
historical Very Bad Ideas are the nails that you were
trained to attack with your hammer.

While I very much admire your precision and your
reverence for the history of words and ideas, I do
occasionally think that you sometimes suspect the
existence of nails where none exist. Just an
observation.

Thanks,

Jim ;-)

Jim, you do me too much honour. I am neither terribly
precise nor such a good philosopher, but allow me to
follow up on an implication of what you said here.

I see what I do as a kind of Lockean "clearing the
undergrowth" program in the philosophy of science. I don't
do science myself, but I pay close attention to the ideas
and history of science when I consider how scientific
words are used.

I then try to apply basic logical and categorial precision
to the present use of words, because words carry
connotations (another logical term) fromthe past that
systematically mislead people. To achieve this, I try to
charitably interpret the words, and then deal with the
remainder of contradiction and amphiboly, using logic that
Aristotle would have recognised.

An admirable program. My "nail" parable suggests that
occasionally you are less charitable than you should
be, though.

Quoted message said:

So my question is this: should science be freed from
logical coherence and consistency?

Of course not.

Quoted message said:

Because if that is not a hammer for all nails, I really do
not know what might be, and that is what you imply.

No, that is what you *read* me as implying. And that, come
to think of it, was my point. But, in this case, I don't
think that you are imagining the nail. You are pretending to
imagine it for rhetorical effect. Please don't do that. It
is impolite and counterproductive IMO.

Quoted message said:

As to the notions of complexity, holism, group properties
and the like, they

I've lost track here. What is the antecedent of "they"? Is
it the same as the antecedent of "them" below?

Quoted message said:

follow from simple logical considerations of set theory or
syllogistic logic (choose your poison - I have a lot of
respect for the traditional syllogisms), so I think it
appropriate to apply them here. If you all want me to drop
it, I shall.

Don't drop it on my account.

Quoted message said:

But I shall continue to think contrary claims are
mistaken :-)

Sorry, I've lost track again. Claims contrary to what?