Re: Emergence denial: the consequences


"r norman" <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:26:05 +1000, j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx (John
Wilkins) wrote:
r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:10:12 +1000, j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx (John
Wilkins) wrote:
r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]
Pressure and temperature are very much 'emergent properties' of systems
even though John W believes them to be real physical things. In other
words, John denies the ontology of consciousness but proclaims it for
temperature and pressure. I, with Vend, claim I don't really know what
it means to 'really exist' but constructs like consciousness, equally
with temperature and pressure, are features that we claim exist for
systems of a certain degree of aggregation or composition (or
complexity, if you really want to know the truth) but those features
are simply inappropriate to discuss about the components that make up
those systems. Particles do not have pressure or temperature but some
massive assemblies of them do; neurons do not have consciousness and
atoms certainly do not, but some brains do.

Pressure is of course a metric. But what it measures is real enough.
Consciousness is not a metric, but it is a term that covers real enough
phenomena, functionally individuated. I don't know what to do with
scientific realism, but for my purposes, physical quantities like
energy, matter, and fields are real enough for government work.

The ambiguity here lies, I think, in the philosophical term "property".
There are physical properties, functional properties, and epistemic
properties. A system/brain may be conscious because it is a functional
property (and as I think functions are themselves epistemic, that makes
them epistemological properties). But that doesn't mean there is a
physical property "being conscious" that has any metaphysical weight.

Consider "life": if, as I think, life is just what certain molecular
systems do, the property of "being alive" is just a convenient way to
mark out certain phenomena for study. Consciousness is likewise a
convention, not a "fact" about the "real world". But then, I'm a
pragmatist when it comes to language and truth...

What you really sound like is an innumerate who is impressed by
anything that can be expressed as a number. That certainty of
magnitude is what makes temperature and pressure real. Unfortunately,
that single number expressing temperature and pressure fail for
systems in Laughlin's "middle way", too big for quantum mechanics and
too small for statistical mechanics; the realm of cellular organelles.

While I have often owned up to being innumerate, it is impolite to
mention it here.

Do you deny that thermal activity is real? Do you deny that molecules of
a certain density will bump into each other?

Thermal activity is a term that we humans attribute to particular
mechanistic things that quarks plus electrons do. It is a useful
descriptive term but no more. And yes I most emphatically deny that
molecules of any density 'bump into each other'. I have absolutely no
idea what you mean by molecules 'touching'. Molecules have properties
that we humans attribute to 'action at a distance' mediated by
'energy fields' or, alternatively, by an exchange of 'particles'
acting as agents of energy interactions. But those 'particles'
(photons, for example) that we use as agents of action are themselves
mere human attributions to help us explain those quarks and electrons.
And I don't know of any modern model of molecules that allows them to
actually touch. Even when atoms react chemically, they don't 'touch'
but rather allow the wave functions of the outer electrons to merge
into a holistic oneness. That is for covalent bonding. In ionic
bonding there is certainly no 'touching' of any kind going on. And
without touching, there is no 'bumping into'.

And even quarks and electrons don't really exist; they are just
humanly defined concepts to help us explain what happens when you pile
up billions of dollars of federal funds together with hundreds of
over-educated weirdos who have no better things to do than build very
elaborate machine to see what happens when they smash things together.

Is that better?

It is all true, but not a very good response. John wrote in defense of the
position that temperature is ontologically 'real':
Do you deny that thermal activity is real? Do you deny that molecules of
a certain density will bump into each other?

But this misses the point. Thermal activity is not the same as temperature.
Temperature is an average or collective property of molecules which are
in a state of thermal equilibrium - that is, the kinetic energy of the molecules
in this collective are distributed by the Maxwell-Boltzman distribution. It
is probably necessary that the molecules 'bump into each other' or otherwise
interact so that thermal equilibrium can be reached and maintained, but the
'bumping' or interacting is not temperature. Temperature is a scalar property
of the collective, not a behavior of the collective. And it is real only to the
extent that the collective has been identified and any such identification of
some collection of molecules to the exclusion of all the other molecules in
the universe is an epistemological act. The identification of a thermodynamic
system (open, closed, or isolated) is arbitrary - it is not the recognition
of a 'natural kind'.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Emergence denial: the consequences
    ... consciousness: "I think it's like asking whether things like ... Pressure and temperature are very much 'emergent properties' of systems ... molecules of any density 'bump into each other'. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Emergence denial: the consequences
    ... consciousness: "I think it's like asking whether things like ... Pressure and temperature are very much 'emergent properties' of systems ... molecules of any density 'bump into each other'. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Emergence denial: the consequences
    ... consciousness: "I think it's like asking whether things like ... temperature or pressure exists. ... molecules of any density 'bump into each other'. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: "Can the Second Law of Thermodynamics Be Circumvented?"
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    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Emergence denial: the consequences
    ... My impression is that the physicists claim that the only reality that ... consciousness: "I think it's like asking whether things like ... Pressure and temperature are very much 'emergent properties' of systems ...
    (talk.origins)