Re: NOVA on Emergence

On Jul 9, 3:01 am, Mike Ruskai <BUTthann...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On or about Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:14:40 -0500 did Slimebot McGoo
<oldert...@xxxxxxxxx> dribble thusly:

The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

McGoo

I've always disliked this statement. It's never true. The whole is
always precisely the sum of its constituent parts. Anyone who says
otherwise just doesn't know how to do the arithmetic.
--

Of course, as a believer in reductionism, you would have to say
this.

However, there is nothing logical about that belief - so waving the
red herring about "arithmetic" is simply nonsense.

BTW, I'm sure that you know this is theoretically unsupportable.
You may not be aware that it also raises significant philosophical
questions. You can of course ignore those problems if you want to
live with that decision. I have no desire to debate your belief
system.

But if you are curious about the problems that this particular belief
entails, there was a long discussion on it here some time back. A
search on "emergence" will probably bring it up.

.

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