From: jimruttshow8596
Emergence is a fascinating phenomenon that occurs when a system’s collective behavior displays properties that are not present in its individual components [01:23:35]. It’s often described as putting “enough quantity together and you invent quality” [01:23:35]. This concept applies broadly across various fields, from biology to human society.
Understanding Emergence
The core premise of emergence is that individual components, though simple and governed by basic rules, can collectively give rise to complex, unpredictable, and adaptive behaviors [01:23:44]. The rules for each individual component are typically about how it interacts with its immediate environment [01:22:56].
Examples of Emergence
- Ant Colonies: A single ant or even ten ants may appear to behave randomly [01:21:31]. However, when 10,000 ants come together, they construct complex societies, build intricate structures, and even create air conditioning vents in their nests [01:21:55]. This organized behavior is an emergent property [01:23:12].
- Brains and Cognition: Similarly, a single neuron is not particularly remarkable on its own [01:22:11]. Yet, 100,000 neurons form a fruit fly, and 80 billion neurons in a human brain can “invent Aesthetics and Theology and economic philosophy” [01:22:25].
- Wetness of Water: One molecule of water (H2O) cannot feel wet [01:23:24]. Wetness is a quality that only emerges when enough water molecules are aggregated together [01:23:35].
- Traveling Salesman Problem: Ant trails and neural networks both demonstrate the ability to solve complex problems like the traveling salesman problem through emergent simple rules [01:24:09].
Emergence and Free Will: A Debated Link
Despite the “coolness” and utility of emergence, especially in complexity science, it is argued that it does not provide a basis for Free will. The idea that Free will is an emergent property is considered problematic because it requires the individual building blocks of a system to suddenly become “smarter” or work differently when combined into a larger whole [01:24:49].
This notion is fundamentally at odds with how emergence actually functions. The individual pieces (like ants or neurons) maintain their “stupid little building blocks” rules even when part of a larger, complex system [01:25:39]. For example, water molecules do not change their chemical composition (H2O) when enough of them come together to create wetness [01:26:02].
The argument that emergent properties allow for “harnessing” or “making things work differently” at the micro-level is also dismissed as nonsensical [01:26:15].
Downward Causality
While emergence does allow for “downward causality” — where macro-level decisions can influence micro-level components (e.g., rolling a stone down a hill affects its electron orbitals) [01:28:41] — this does not imply a violation of physical laws or the ability to make components behave in ways they are otherwise incapable of [01:29:09]. Abstract concepts like honor or law and order, while influencing human behavior, are themselves emergent phenomena that operate within the constraints of underlying physical reality [01:27:20].
In summary, while emergent complexity is a powerful concept for understanding how intricate systems arise from simple interactions, it is argued that it does not provide an “escape valve” for Free will within a deterministic framework [02:52:50].