Emergence and multiple-drafts
David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity" is an interesting and thought provoking book.
Deutsch (1) points out that even in physics, reductionism simply is not fully applicable. He restates the interesting example of describing the position of a copper atom on the nose of a statue of Winston Churchill in London, England. in this case the theories of such ideas as war, leadership and tradition apply in a fairly direct manner but low level physics and the like do not seem to immediately assist explanation at all. He then goes on to point out that even in the case of describing in the case of the cooking of an egg, low level atomic physics is not much use for reductionist explanatory terms. He then says (2), using Hofstadter's example of the relationship between the concept of prime numbers and physical computing results, that 'abstraction' does help to explain certain matters of the mind and brain.
In my view we certainly do not have to go on beyond this to assume that either abstraction or emergence (or both together) is some kind of panacea to such philosophical problems. The understanding of the existence of parochialism as being an apparently inevitable concomitant of abstraction, and the subsequent intended advantage of cleaning up the parochialism by the abstraction, does not in any way ensure that emergence is a relatively simple route to success. Such an easy assumption might well suggest a simple answer to the 'digital or analog' problem (4) which homespun philosophers frequently suggest. In fact the implication which can be taken from Deutsch's idea that the idea of error-correction (4) in some sense allows 'digital' to be an advance beyond 'analog' will certainly not satisfy some other physical scientists (3) and so per se tends to imply that presenting the idea of parochialism in such cases, though certainly worth considering, is a dubious argumentum ad hominem which it inevitably can easily become - and often does !
The concepts of digital and analog were invented to describe idealized models of human-designed machines, and are far too narrow to encompass the subtleties of living creatures, for example.
A particular relevant case of the above would be the idea of 'freewill' being termed 'homespun', simply bearing in mind the now widely presented idea that the human mind can decide what it is going to do as much as 10 seconds before it becomes aware of this (5). By now such a denial of freewill is a guess belonging to a larger system of tacit assumptions about 'how the mind works'. I suppose that such a denial of freewill could be also construed as 'shoddy reductionism'. In short those who accept that 'freewill' is 'homespun' could themselves be described as 'homespun philosophers trying to take the over easy route'. That really does lead to a fairly gross acceptance of ideas like 'multiple-drafts' which really cannot help the case for multiple-draft enthusiasts when the matter is properly pursued.
So asserting 'homespun parochialism' is not enough, and certainly cannot allow an easy acceptance of emergence as a cure-all. Of course emergence is nonetheless a powerful and useful tool, just like pure mathematics is.
Emergence, abstraction and reductionism are tools which work, up to a point, but all have limitations. And certainly we must not throw aside ideas like 'multiple-drafts' but at the same time they certainly cannot be accepted as a sine qua non or even as a useful working hypothesis in some cases. Indeed we have to be careful not to use emergence as a philosopher's bootstrap.
References
1.Deutsch D., (2011), "The Beginning of Infinity", p109, Allen Lane, ISBN 978-0-713-99274-8
2. ibid., p 115
3. Andrade E., (2006), "The Organization of Nature: Semiotic Agents as Intermediaries between Digital and Analog Informational Spaces", http://www.library.utoronto.ca/see/SEED/Vol2-1/Andrade/Andrade.htm ; and Andrade's idea of 'form' is only one of many approaches to the digital/analog problem.
4. ibid 1, at 141
5. Soon C.S., Brass M., Heinze H.,Haynes J.D., (2008), "Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain", Nature Neuroscience 11, 543 - 545
David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity" is an interesting and thought provoking book.
Deutsch (1) points out that even in physics, reductionism simply is not fully applicable. He restates the interesting example of describing the position of a copper atom on the nose of a statue of Winston Churchill in London, England. in this case the theories of such ideas as war, leadership and tradition apply in a fairly direct manner but low level physics and the like do not seem to immediately assist explanation at all. He then goes on to point out that even in the case of describing in the case of the cooking of an egg, low level atomic physics is not much use for reductionist explanatory terms. He then says (2), using Hofstadter's example of the relationship between the concept of prime numbers and physical computing results, that 'abstraction' does help to explain certain matters of the mind and brain.
In my view we certainly do not have to go on beyond this to assume that either abstraction or emergence (or both together) is some kind of panacea to such philosophical problems. The understanding of the existence of parochialism as being an apparently inevitable concomitant of abstraction, and the subsequent intended advantage of cleaning up the parochialism by the abstraction, does not in any way ensure that emergence is a relatively simple route to success. Such an easy assumption might well suggest a simple answer to the 'digital or analog' problem (4) which homespun philosophers frequently suggest. In fact the implication which can be taken from Deutsch's idea that the idea of error-correction (4) in some sense allows 'digital' to be an advance beyond 'analog' will certainly not satisfy some other physical scientists (3) and so per se tends to imply that presenting the idea of parochialism in such cases, though certainly worth considering, is a dubious argumentum ad hominem which it inevitably can easily become - and often does !
The concepts of digital and analog were invented to describe idealized models of human-designed machines, and are far too narrow to encompass the subtleties of living creatures, for example.
A particular relevant case of the above would be the idea of 'freewill' being termed 'homespun', simply bearing in mind the now widely presented idea that the human mind can decide what it is going to do as much as 10 seconds before it becomes aware of this (5). By now such a denial of freewill is a guess belonging to a larger system of tacit assumptions about 'how the mind works'. I suppose that such a denial of freewill could be also construed as 'shoddy reductionism'. In short those who accept that 'freewill' is 'homespun' could themselves be described as 'homespun philosophers trying to take the over easy route'. That really does lead to a fairly gross acceptance of ideas like 'multiple-drafts' which really cannot help the case for multiple-draft enthusiasts when the matter is properly pursued.
So asserting 'homespun parochialism' is not enough, and certainly cannot allow an easy acceptance of emergence as a cure-all. Of course emergence is nonetheless a powerful and useful tool, just like pure mathematics is.
Emergence, abstraction and reductionism are tools which work, up to a point, but all have limitations. And certainly we must not throw aside ideas like 'multiple-drafts' but at the same time they certainly cannot be accepted as a sine qua non or even as a useful working hypothesis in some cases. Indeed we have to be careful not to use emergence as a philosopher's bootstrap.
References
1.Deutsch D., (2011), "The Beginning of Infinity", p109, Allen Lane, ISBN 978-0-713-99274-8
2. ibid., p 115
3. Andrade E., (2006), "The Organization of Nature: Semiotic Agents as Intermediaries between Digital and Analog Informational Spaces", http://www.library.utoronto.ca/see/SEED/Vol2-1/Andrade/Andrade.htm ; and Andrade's idea of 'form' is only one of many approaches to the digital/analog problem.
4. ibid 1, at 141
5. Soon C.S., Brass M., Heinze H.,Haynes J.D., (2008), "Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain", Nature Neuroscience 11, 543 - 545
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