04. Emergence

The most important fact about emergence is that the properties of emergent processes are not functionally related to the processes that lead to emergence. This thought pattern leaves us in the same state as much of the effort related to understanding emergence. There is always some question about whether it, emergence, happened or just appeared to happen. Did we see it or did we just think we saw it? Did it happen or did it just appear to happen?

An example is living things compared with non-living things. It is very hard to define "living" functionally. Defining "living" by appearances or perception is much easier. Living things grow but don't some non-living things (volcanoes for instance) grow? Most functional arguments have similar problems with defining "living" in a way that applies to all living things but not to any non-living thing. Telling the difference between a living and a dead thing is often done by appearances. "I think that tree over there is dead."

What I am trying to say is that the two methodologies for analysis: functionalism and thick interpretation are not really adequate to the problem we are trying to solve. Functionalism is totally inadequate for the task and thick interpretation leaves us with a description of the emergent but only vague lines of relationships. We must find a methodology that can analyze emergent processes into the underlying concepts. Although thick interpretation has been the standard for solving this kind of problem we need a new and better methodology that results in more practical and useful conclusions.

Jerome Heath