Talk:Emergence
Non-standard and internally inconsistent criterion for distinguishing weak from strong emergence
The "Strong and weak emergence" section offers an unusual and internally inconsistent criterion for distinguishing the two concepts, which conflicts with the standard philosophical treatment.
The section says:
- "In terms of physical systems, weak emergence is a type of emergence in which the emergent property is amenable to computer simulation... Crucial in these simulations is that the interacting members retain their independence. If not, a new entity is formed with new, emergent properties: this is called strong emergence, which it is argued cannot be simulated, analysed or reduced."
This makes member independence the distinguishing criterion: weak emergence when parts stay distinct, strong emergence when they fuse. This is non-standard and leads to strange consequences. Under this reading, chemical bonding (atoms "losing their independence" to form a molecule) would be strong emergence, while a murmuration of starlings (birds remaining distinct) would be weak emergence — but in the philosophical literature it is typically the reverse: chemistry is a paradigm example of weak emergence (in principle reducible to physics), while the phenomenal character of conscious experience is the contested candidate for strong emergence (possibly not so reducible).
The section also offers a different characterisation of strong emergence just a few paragraphs later: "Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of a high-level system on its components." This is downward causation, which is related to strong emergence but not the same thing — an emergent property could be ontologically irreducible without causally acting downward on its substrate, and vice versa.
The standard philosophical distinction, associated with Bedau (1997) and Chalmers (2002) — both already cited in the article — is:
- Weak emergence: the emergent property supervenes on lower-level properties and is in principle deducible from them, but only through simulation or observation, not through direct analytical reduction. It is epistemically irreducible but ontologically reducible.
- Strong emergence: the emergent property is not even in principle deducible from lower-level properties. It is claimed to be ontologically irreducible — a genuinely novel feature of reality.
The "independence of members" criterion should be removed or substantially revised, and the section should more carefully distinguish the epistemic/ontological dimension that actually does the philosophical work.