the mit press emergence contemporary readings in philosophy and science apr 2008

[...]... introductions put the chapters into context, explain how they are connected, and pose some key questions for further exploration The chapters in this book form only the tip of the iceberg of the emergence literature in contemporary philosophy and science, and further reading material is listed in the bibliography Those who wish to use the collection as the basis for a course or seminar on emergence in some specific... from The Sciences of the Artificial, third edition Copyright ( 1996 by the MIT Press Reprinted by permission of the MIT Press 14 ‘ The Theory of Everything’’ by Robert B Laughlin and David Pines, from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 (2000) Copyright ( 2000 by the National Academy of Sciences Reprinted by permission of the National Academy of Sciences and David Pines 15 ‘‘Is Anything... of emergence seems opaque, and perhaps even incoherent The topic has special urgency today because of the burgeoning attention to emergence in contemporary philosophy and science This book examines how emergence is treated in contemporary philosophy and science, and one of our goals is to facilitate informed discussions between these communities Less insular discussions should clarify what the main... Searle from The Rediscovery of the Mind Copyright ( 1992 by the MIT Press Reprinted by permission of the MIT Press and John Searl 4 Excerpt from ‘ Emergence and Supervenience’’ by Brian P McLaughlin, from Intellectica 25 (1997), edited by Rosenthal Copyright ( 1997 by Intellectica Reprinted by permission of Intellectica and Brian P McLaughlin 5 ‘‘Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence ’... Because the topic of emergence is conceptually subtle and multifaceted, philosophical precision is required for sustained progress in understanding what emergence is and when it occurs Students of emergence should therefore find it instructive to study these philosophical contributions to the analysis of emergence and surrounding topics The significant resurgence of interest in emergence within contemporary. .. (1843), and traced through Alexander Bain’s Logic (1870), George Henry Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind (1875), Samuel Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity (1920), Lloyd Morgan’s Emergent Evolution (1923), and C D Broad’s The Mind and Its Place in Nature (1925), the last truly major work in the tradition; but the tradition continues even today in the work of a few authors, for example, in the work of the. .. count in favor of a theory of emergence if it could explain how all these examples do involve emergence But there is no guarantee that the best theory will classify all these examples as genuine cases of emergence When we finally understand what emergence truly is, we might see that many of the examples are only apparent cases of emergence Indeed, one of the hotly contested issues is whether there are... but also candidate examples may be abandoned because they fail to fit an otherwise convincing theory In a similar way, we must be prepared to abandon some of our preconceptions and background beliefs about emergence if a persuasive and detailed theory of emergence calls them into question One small caveat is needed here Hunting for emergence is an exciting sport, but the claim that something is emergent... Symons, and van Benthem Copyright ( 1974 by Springer Science and Business Media Reprinted by permission of Springer Science and Business Media and Jerry Fodor 23 Excerpt from ‘‘Supervenience’’ by David J Chalmers, from The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory Copyright ( 1996 by David J Chalmers Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc and David J Chalmers 24 ‘ The Nonreductivist’s... whether a theory of emergence must be necessarily true and apply to every logically possible world, or whether it would be sufficient if the theory were merely true of the actual world When considering these issues, one must decide whether there are sufficiently many clear and uncontroversial examples of emergence that they can be used to test theories, or whether an independently appealing theory of emergence . alt="" Emergence Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science edited by Mark A. Bedau and Paul Humphreys A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England ( 2008. form only the tip of the iceberg of the emergence literature in contemporary philosophy and science, and fur- ther reading material is listed in the bibliography. Those who wish to use the collection as. from The Sciences of the Arti- ficial, third edition. Copyright ( 1996 by the MIT Press. Reprinted by permission of the MIT Press. 14. ‘ The Theory of Everything’’ by Robert B. Laughlin and David