Re: Emergent Properties

Merv:

> I read the whole work a couple of years ago, but I'm thinking I
> need to check it out again because I've forgotten too much
> (library has it and I'm too cheap to buy it --- sorry!) I
> didn't realize/forgot you were one of the contributing essayists
> as well. You guys are well represented here! Now that Randy and
> Keith both have brought up MacKay that sounds like necessary
> reading as well.
> I also like the way Lewis phrased it in one of his books ---
> someone might observe a poem and correctly conclude it's a bunch of
> black marks on a piece of paper, but if they insist it is nothing
> more than that they would be in error. Is this getting at the
> 'nothing buttery' phrase in the same way you refer to marks on a
> board, Randy? Or perhaps heirarchically we could have a
> grammatician at yet another level in the middle observing only
> words and punctuation but blind to overall meaning or
> significance. Is this true to the vein of thought?

Yes, I think that that captures at least part of the meaning. There
are a lot of different analogies and metaphors, and each rings a
somewhat different aspect of the issue.

For me one of the fundamental perspectives is that an internally
complete description of a system at one level does not in any way
deny the validity of another different and non-contradictory
description at another level. There can be several internally
complete levels of description within the broad umbrella of science.
At a yet higher level, the whole hierarchy of scientific descriptions
become one type of understanding of reality that can be (at least
theoretically) complete, but yet cannot exclude the existence of
another equally valid, equally true, and non-conflicting understanding.

Keith
Received on Fri May 5 22:44:59 2006