http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Emergence-Seminar-British-Emergence-tp3645669p3646905.html
same beast as what we call emergence today. Those very
> As I read it, the issue isn't whether structures and/or configurations
> are/aren't important, the question is whether they operate according
> to emergent or resultant rule sets.
>
> The Emergentists were betting heavily on the emergent rule set. They
> believed that the variety of chemistry couldn't possibly be the result
> of protons and electrons operating according to physics as they knew
> it. They were right, it wasn't physics as they knew it, but the
> answer turned out to be the result of configurational physics rather
> than emergent principles of chemistry. They also bet that the variety
> of biology couldn't be the result of chemical molecules operating
> according to the chemistry they knew. And they were right again, it
> wasn't chemistry as they knew it, but the answer turned out to be the
> result of configurational chemistry rather than emergent priniciples
> of biology.
>
> Chemistry and biology turn out to be ever more complicated
> configurations of protons and electrons, with some neutron ballast,
> operating according to the principles of quantum mechanics and
> statistical mechanics. It's all physics, same particles, same forces,
> same laws, no emergent forces. There are configuration forces, but
> they're not emergent forces, they're subtle results of electrons
> packing themselves into quantized energy levels in increasingly
> complicated configurations of nuclei.
>
> The structure of DNA and the elaboration of molecular biology was the
> last straw because it provided a purely physical mechanism for
> inheritance.
>
> But you're right to see it as a bit of a conundrum. The Emergentists,
> as McLaughlin summarizes them, were substantially correct:
> configurations of atoms in molecules are the key to understanding
> chemistry, there are all sorts of chemically distinctive things that
> happen because of those configurations, none of those chemically
> distinctive things are obvious when you play around with protons and
> electrons in the physics lab. But it all turned out to be part of the
> resultant of quantum mechanics, not emergent in the sense the
> Emergentists had painted themselves into, so they were wrong in the
> one sense they really cared about.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:22 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,
> > Clark University (
[hidden email])
> >
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
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http://www.friam.org> >
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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