Posted by
Jochen Fromm-4 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/quick-question-tp3037681p3069784.html
Exactly, I think it is a useless and void concept if one defines it in
this way. It makes sense the other way round: the stronger the
emergence, the weaker the causal dependence.
Yet although we agree there is no mysterious downward causation,
we can without doubt consciously influence the activities and movements
of our body. If there is no downward causation, who is causing these
activities? What do you think?
* Wrong question, the actor is not a single entity ?
* Self-consciousness does not trigger actions, it impedes actions
(Hamlet's to be or not to be comes to mind) ?
* We are not the actor of our own story, just the witness of it?
-J.
----- Original Message -----
From: "russell standish" <
[hidden email]>
To: <
[hidden email]>; "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group" <
[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 3:17 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] quick question
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 07:01:38PM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> Steve,
>>
>> My understanding of the meaning of "strong" emergence is "inexplicable
>> emergence".
>>
>> Is there another meaning?
>>
>> N
>
> Bedau defines it as emergence with downward causation. For example, we
> would say
> that consciousness is strongly emergent if we felt that we could
> consciously influence the activities of our neurons, rather than
> simply our consciousness simply being the result of neuronal activity.
>
> I'm not sure this notion has any use in discussions other than
> consciousness, and even there the notion of epiphenomenalism would say
> that it is void concept.
>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
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