Re: BHA: Emergence

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Marshall,

Thanks for this mega contribution. I can only find time for a few
comments. I agree with much.

>Water molecules are, in some sense, less complex than oxygen
>and hydrogen atoms, and they in turn are less complex than subnuclear
>particles.

Could water molecules be said to (constellationally) contain or embrace
the lower order atoms and particles, in which case there would be a
sense in which they are more complex? If so, the same would presumably
apply quite generally.

>I prefer to reserve
>"emergence" to designate a NECESSARY relation, whereas many of the other
>meanings discussed above denote either contingent or even accidental
>relationships

I agree with this, and I think it applies to conceptual emergence too.
In my recent post I said:

>When I speak of emergent levels among ideas I
>am thinking of systems of ideas and/or theories and paradigms, not
>singular ideas.

Perhaps it would be better had I said, 'the causal powers of systems of
ideas' etc, where a system is a configuration of necessary or internal
relations. Berth Danermark et al in *Explaining Society: Critical
Realism in the Social Sciences* Routledge 2002 (which btw is making good
its claim for me - I'm only half way through - to be the first
comprehensive presentation of CR and its methodological implications for
social science), taking their cue from Collier, stress that 'it is just
the mechanisms that are stratified, not the phenomena - events,
creatures or things - as such'. So, among life forms, it is not the
species homo s., or individual members of it, that are emergent, rather
'species being' - the novel and irreducible powers and needs of the
species (e.g. the capacity for language-acquisition). Similarly with
ideas - it is not singular ideas or ideas in general at the level of the
Actual that we are talking about, but the power of configurations of
ideas at the level of the Real. The question of whether conceptual
emergence is sui generis real would then resolve itself mainly into the
question of whether systems of ideas, theories, paradigms etc possess
causal powers in virtue of their internal structure or relatedness (what
you call necessary relationships). I would say they unquestionably do,
both in regard to scientific and ideological systems, and not just
formally but substantively in terms of their content. This is at the
level of the 'genus'. Within that there is then also stratification,
definable ultimately in terms of the power of theories etc either to
grasp other aspects of the stratification of the Real or to occlude and
mystify this.

>CR has the unique
>(to my knowledge) advantage that it can incorporate so much of the cultural
>(Kuhn)/linguistic (Quine, Davidson) critique of positivism while still
>insisting on a reality outside culture and language and a notion of truth
>that is not relativist. These are not simple waters to negotiate

I agree.

Mervyn



Marshall Feldman <marsh@xxxxxxx> writes
>Hi all,
>
>This is a long post, so be warned.
>
>Mervyn wrote:
>
>
>> There is no requirement that the emergent level does react back on the
>> lower level, only that it can do - and life-forms certainly can. I'm not
>> sure that emergence is not always diachronic as well as synchronic.
>
>Neither am I sure, although I suspect you and I lean towards different sides
>of the question. This certainly would be an interesting question to explore.
>
>I'm tempted to say that synchronic emergence is a movement towards
>increasing complexity. The logic behind this is that synchronic emergence
>concerns levels in the world. As you rightly say, the properties and causal
>powers of things at one level cannot be derived or predicted from those
>things that comprise it. Their specific combination and relation to each
>other, what RB calls structure, is what accounts for the causal powers at
>the higher level. Since things at a higher level of combination include
>things at a lower level, it would seem that emergence always involves
>increasing complexity.
>
>The problem with this is that quantum physics teaches us that this is not
>necessarily so. Water molecules are, in some sense, less complex than oxygen
>and hydrogen atoms, and they in turn are less complex than subnuclear
>particles. However, I'm using "complexity" here in a way that trades off
>"human understanding." High school students learn about water molecules
>because, among other things, it's easy to construct a physical model with
>one large blue ball linked to two smaller red balls which, if memory serves
>me, are at a 120 degree angle to each other. On the other hand, try
>explaining to a high school student that an electron is really mass-energy
>distributed in space according to a 3-D probability density function!
>
>So this raises another question. Is complexity inherently anthropocentric?
>Logically, since higher-level beings must contain the lower-level things
>that comprise them, higher-level things are more complex almost by
>definition. However, precisely because of emergence, the properties of
>higher-level things may (partly) result from those of lower-level things,
>but these properties themselves may be less complex (in senses such as
>taking on fewer different states, changing less frequently, having fewer
>distinct causal powers, etc.)? In other words, can we (1) fashion a
>non-anthropocentric notion of complexity and (2) say that complexity is
>itself an emergent property so that we can separate the concept of emergence
>from that of complexity?
>
>Another concern I have is that so much of this discussion subtly extends
>natural science, particularly physics, to other domains. We come to
>understand the concept of emergence through examples like water. Once we
>grant it legitimacy we then use it as a principle elsewhere. While accepting
>the concept of emergence and allowing for it *possibly* to be at work
>elsewhere, I wonder if in fact our notion of emergence needs modification in
>other realms. This may account for why we're debating how to think of
>emergence in relation to ideas and to society.
>
>Even the term, "emergence," is perhaps loaded with a residue of reductionist
>baggage it ought not carry. It implies that properties at one level *emerge*
>from properties at a lower level. What if we just said that reality is
>layered in different ways, one of which is that the world has "bigger"
>things consisting of "smaller" things; these bigger and smaller things are
>what we mean by "levels," and properties and causal powers at one level
>cannot be predicted by or deduced from those at another level? This would
>leave open questions of historical sequence, of what emerges from what, and
>most generally of chickens and eggs. In the social sciences at least, both
>Marxists and feminists have argued that individual personality emerges from
>societal forms. Indeed, RB's observation that emergent things can react back
>on the thing from which they emerge makes this a distinctly chicken-egg kind
>of problem.
>
>The reason why I still want to separate level and see emergence as a
>synchronic relation between levels is to avoid the chickens and eggs.
>(Sorry, it must be the holidays that are making me use this metaphor; it's
>their causal powers emerging in my writing -- MF ;) ). Think of the TMSA. RB
>introduces history here as a step forward from earlier "dialectical"
>formulations such as Berger and Luckmann's. This move is justified, but I
>worry when we start to conflate questions about what came first in order to
>answer questions about the relationship between levels. I still think
>there's a qualitative difference between on one hand the relationship
>between capitalism as a social system and individual characteristics such as
>personality, "rationality," etc. and, on the other hand, between capitalism
>and feudalism, its predecessor.
>
>Viewing the problem this way makes disentangling things much more complex,
>but I think also more perspicacious and, ultimately, more warranted (i.e.,
>more true). Take RB's picture of the TMSA (p. 77 in RR):
>
>
>          -------------> Society --------------------->
>                     ||               ^^
>                     ||               ||
>                     vv               ||
>          ------------->Individuals ------------------>
>
>We have to recognize that at any one point in time, both synchronic and
>diachronic emergence are at play, BUT THEY ARE NOT FROM THE SAME THINGS. To
>make this point, reproduce a portion of the picture:
>
>
>                      Society -------O---------->
>                                    ^^
>                                    ||
>                                    ||
>                      Individuals -------------->
>
>where O is the social reality we're trying to grasp. It emerges out of BOTH
>society's history (diachronic) AND individuals present in that society
>(synchronic -- both in terms of action and personality). Of course previous
>society itself emerges out of individuals, but (as the downward arrows
>indicate) those individuals themselves emerged out of previous society.
>Hence, from the standpoint of O, previous societies mediate previous
>individuals, and contemporary individuals mediate past societies.
>Nonetheless, in the first instance a society emerges out of its history qua
>society and the individuals that comprise it. The society's history (e.g.,
>the inherited physical structure of human settlements, social institutions,
>etc.) constrains, empowers, and problematizes the society today while in a
>very different sense, the people who comprise that society have similar but
>different effects. To take a concrete (pun intended) example, what will
>happen in lower Manhattan next year will be due to the events of 9/11, the
>physical layout of Manhattan, the socioeconomic institutions of capitalism
>and the stock and real estate markets (assuming they're still here next
>year), as well as due to individual decisions such as the ballots cast by
>NYC voters, the decisions to move or stay in the city, or the policies
>adopted by the new Mayor.
>
>In this example, "emergence," for want of a better word, has three distinct
>senses that we should keep separate: (1) history (the horizontal arrows --
>e.g., 9/11), (2) deliberate action (the vertical arrows), and (3) unintended
>consequences (the vertical arrows again, at least those pointing up). I've
>always understood emergence to be only #3, but then perhaps we should
>include the other two and assign special names for them. I propose:
>historical, active, and inter-level emergence.
>
>
>
>> Even
>> in your synchronic case of water, I take it that there was a time when
>> hydrogen and oxygen existed but no water, and before that various gases
>> and particles, but no hydrogen or oxygen... DPF is clear that both
>> synchronic and diachronic explanatory reductions of emergent phenomena
>> are possible, but only after the emergent level has been understood in
>> its own terms. This entails seeing that it could not have been predicted
>> (induced or deduced) from the materials out of which it is formed, i.e.
>> that is has genuinely novel, irreducible causal powers. In my 'society'
>> example I was thinking, not of the society/person relation, but of the
>> emergence historically of different types of society, as grasped e.g. by
>> the concept 'mode of production'. Thus capitalism is diachronically
>> emergent from feudalism, and certainly capable of reacting back on it
>> (something still occurring today in relation to feudal remnants).
>
>
>Can you fit the discussion of feudalism into the pictures above? I think the
>only way to do this is to pose either a geographic separation or to think of
>"society" as in fact being a social formation in which distinct modes of
>production exist contemporaneously and conterminously, but at the level of
>society rather than at the level of individuals. (It never ceases to amaze
>me how much of this brings us back to Althusser.) I think what you're
>talking about would then have to be yet a fourth level of emergence, to wit:
>
>          -------------> Feudalism  - - - - - - - - - - ->
>                     ^|               ^|
>                     ||               ||                      } Society
>(social formation)
>                     |v               |v
>         - - - - - - - > Capitalism --------------------->
>                     ||               ^^
>                     ||               ||
>                     vv               ||
>          ------------->Individuals ------------------>
>
>Here the space-out lines, - - -, indicate ascendant and declining modes of
>production.
>
>If we do this, then I think it becomes clear that the feudalism capitalism
>emerges from is not the same feudalism that capitalism reacts upon. They are
>separated in time. On the other hand, at any point in time the social
>formation is emergent from the specific combination of modes of production
>as well as from the individuals who comprise it through their everyday lives
>and through their intentional actions aimed at the societal level.
>
>>
>> Tobin:
>>
>> >> >I don't think one can use explanatory power
>> >> >as a mark of ontological difference among ideas, because the
>> explanations
>> >> >concern referents.
>>
>> Mervyn:
>>
>> >> But you hold that ideas are not *the same* kind of thing as their
>> >> referents; further, as Ruth said, belief systems (can) presuppose other
>> >> belief systems.
>>
>> Marshall:
>>
>> >I'm not sure I get the point of this. Can you elaborate on how
>> difference in
>> >kind between ideas/referents or the presupposing of prior belief systems
>> >pertains to the issue of using explanatory power to determine ontological
>> >differences?
>>
>> Tobin says that explanatory power can't be used to indicate ontological
>> difference among ideas *because* explanations concern referents. I take
>> this to be Ruth's point about content. He seems to want to say that
>> where there are emergent levels it is in the intransitive objects of
>> ideas, not at the level of ideas themselves. My point to Tobin is that
>> this seems to reduce ideas to their referents or content (the ontic
>> fallacy, I think), and is at odds with his insistence on the social
>> production of knowledge by means of knowledge via the transformation of
>> pre-existing materials. While the production of knowledge occurs in the
>> transitive or epistemological dimension, it can of course be
>> referentially detached and studied as an intransitive object. In which
>> case, it can be seen to involve the emergence of a new (conceptual)
>> being (dpf 49) or theory out of the pre-existing materials of the lower
>> level and possessing powers that are irreducible.
>
>I think I see your point here, but again I think we need to look more
>closely. First, let's forget about referents. I agree that they're besides
>the point when we consider emergence at the level of ideas. (Although I'll
>reintroduce them in a minute.) Second, I would grant you that the concept of
>emergence works at the level of ideas alone, but I would hasten to add that
>the synchronic/diachronic elements in the TMSA are also at play here. E.g.,
>neoclassical economics emerged out of classical economics (and in opposition
>to Marxian economics), AND the properties of neoclassical economics (e.g.,
>law of supply and demand) emerge from the theory's building blocks (e.g.,
>rational economic man [sic] and, at a lower level, a rationalist,
>masculinist empiricism which deems deductive/analytic modes of thought
>superior to others). Both kinds of emergence happened, but they're not the
>same kind.
>
>Now let's bring the referents back in. They too can determine thought. When
>the Great Depression hit, Keynes went scurrying to explain what neoclassical
>economics could not. Should we say that Keynesian economics emerged from the
>Great Depression?
>
>I think we're beginning to see the problem here. The notion of emergence can
>mean many distinct things, and if we're careful there's nothing wrong with
>using it these different ways. For the sake of clarity, I prefer to reserve
>"emergence" to designate a NECESSARY relation, whereas many of the other
>meanings discussed above denote either contingent or even accidental
>relationships (by all accounts, the fact that the WTC collapsed was an
>accident that nobody, not even the terrorists, planned -- this is not to say
>the terrorists were not delighted at the accidental results -- at a
>different level, that of the building's mechanics, the collapse was
>necessary). I also prefer to distinguish emergence between levels from
>historical, logical, and other forms of emergence. Thus, while the
>occurrence of a specific configuration of things at one level may be
>contingent, once we have this configuration there's a necessary relationship
>to other levels. This is not to deny that the other relationships do not
>exist, it's only to say that we'd gain more clarity if we clearly
>distinguish between the different meanings of "emergence."
>
>> >To me it seems the very nature of "explanatory power" puts ideas in a
>> >separate category from most (other) ontological things. While
>> along with H.
>> >Marcuse, I do not want to abolish ideas from being part of the world, I
>> >nonetheless think they are a special category and we need to be
>> very careful
>> >when we refer to their ontological status.
>>
>> Of course they are in a special or distinct (not separate, because they
>> emerge from pre-existing materials) category - they are emergent, or at
>> any rate the product of an emergent power of matter: mind.
>
>Right, but everything in the universe is connected to everything else. I'm
>not sure we gain much by stressing the mind-matter relationship when we
>discuss the relation between ideas and referents or between ideas and their
>antecedent ideas or between ideas and their presuppositions. The only time
>the mind-matter relationship warrants our attention is when we really want
>to say something about it in relation to the other things at issue.
>Otherwise, it's just a diversion.
>
>>
>> Marshall:
>>
>> >Yeah, but I don't think anyone on this list buys into this kind of
>> >irrealism. It's a straw man.
>>
>> Well, Marko has got the impression that they do, and this is what I'm
>> trying to correct. If people keep intoning that knowledge is a social
>> production (in the transitive dimension) without pointing out that it
>> does *not* produce the objects of knowledge in the intransitive
>> dimension, of which genuine knowledge is possible, it's not going to be
>> corrected and we pretty inevitably come across as social
>> constructionists in the above sense.
>
>Yes, I can see this. But this whole issue is so delicate today that it poses
>a problem. On the one hand, we do have the postmodernists and the whole
>irrealist thread running through their discourse. Lots of this is just
>nonsense or language games of a very superficial nature. On the other hand,
>some of their concerns about language, the theory-laden nature of
>observation, the role of scientific communities, etc. make considerable
>sense and deserve to be taken seriously. The difficulty is that so much of
>the latter, good stuff slides into the former, nonsense. CR has the unique
>(to my knowledge) advantage that it can incorporate so much of the cultural
>(Kuhn)/linguistic (Quine, Davidson) critique of positivism while still
>insisting on a reality outside culture and language and a notion of truth
>that is not relativist. These are not simple waters to negotiate, but emails
>become excessively long (like this one) if we have to present the whole
>argument every time we discuss anything.
>
>
>       Marsh Feldman
>
>
>
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