Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence
Posted by
Russ Abbott on
Sep 14, 2009; 11:38pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Emergence-Seminar-British-Emergence-tp3645669p3645712.html
That's the problem I have with taking historical ideas seriously. Why should we care whether whatever the British Emergentists thought makes sense now? What we should care about is what does make sense now? Of course, as I mentioned to you (Nick) privately, my wife, who works in Early Modern English, thinks it's very important what people used to think.
It seems to me that if you are a historian of ideas, it may be important what people used to think, and if you want to understand how we got from there to here it may be important what people used to think, but if what you are interested in is how to understand emergence, then that should be the question.
If the British Emergentists have something to say about emergence that would be worth listening to today, then it should be discussed. If the presentation of what the British Emergentists thought is not clear enough to determine whether it has something to offer today, then that's certainly a problem -- and one the author should clear up. But just because the British Emergentists used to think something, I don't see that as justification for spending much time talking about it.
-- Russ
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
All,
I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned, seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me, these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what the dickens are they?
Can anybody help me with this paradox????
I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will forward any remarks he may have back to you.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org