roger will give a more complete answer, but let me just say that I think
wimsatt would say that in point of fact, the idealness of ideal gasses exists
only in the models. Aggregativity is for him a useful fiction. How a fiction
can be a fiction and still useful, is the kind of issue dennett struggles with
in his chapter.
By setting the 4 criteria for aggregativity, wimsatt directs our attention to
each of the ways in which it can fail.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: Roger Critchlow
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 10/11/2009 4:45:59 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A question for the emergentists among you
With aggregativity defined that way, Wimsatt notes that "Very few system
properties are aggregative." Then what? Is the point that "emergence, defined
as failure of aggregativity" has now been fully characterized? Problem solved?
I wouldn't agree with that. I think there is more to say than just a negative
definition.
An interesting example to which this approach might be applied is an ideal gas.
Such a gas satisfies all the aggregativity conditions. Yet it has properties
(the gas laws) that the individual components lack.
-- Russ A
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com> wrote:
Roger, Well said.
But there is a further question. Can anything be added to your (Mill's)
statement that when you combine some things (e.g., combining a bunch of cows
into a herd) the result has properties that the components lack. That is, what,
if anything, can one say about those phenomena that exhibit this property? Do
those phenomena have anything in common?
Wimsatt lists four heuristics for establishing "aggregativity" of properties:
swap "identical" parts in the aggregate; increase or decrease the number of
parts in the aggregate; take the aggregate apart and reassemble it; and
freedom from non-linear interactions between parts. The heuristics aren't
necessarily independent of each other, but neither are they necessarily
dependent. So, there are four kinds of emergence which fail just one
heuristic, six kinds which fail two different heuristics, four kinds which fail
three different heuristic, and one kind which fails all four heuristics. So
that's 15 different flavors of emergence, which is perhaps an overestimate, but
Wimsatt is still soliciting for additional heuristics.
-- rec --
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