[nathan_compton]

It roughly goes like this: if phenomena can be truly emergent, which is to say that the phenomena is causally independent of the underlying physical system, then its reasonable to say that the emergent behavior is not determined by the physical law of the underlying system.

Terrance Deacon makes this case in "Incomplete Nature." As I said, I think its wrong, but I think its worth considering whether it could be right.

[jstanley]

Another example: is Firefox explained by electronics?

The computer is made out of electronics, and Firefox exists in the computer and is in a way part of the computer, but electronics is not the right level to understand Firefox, and in principle you could implement Firefox on a computer that wasn't made out of electronics.

[glenstein]

A great example, though it makes me want to head something off. You can be a brute literalist and insist it is the right level since its capable of embodying and instantiating Firefox, and so it's "just" a medium but the medium embodies the message, and knowing its configuration "in terms of electricity" does give you message, the structure, and the concepts.

Although we abstract away the electronics, it doesn't have the implication sometimes suggested by emergentism, that it exhibits a physical reality that is "independent of" its electronics. The abstracting away shouldn't be taken to mean that some new ontological thing was conjured into being that's physically real in the same sense as the electronics.

If that seems like it goes without saying or is beside the point, well, great! That's kind of what I want to hear. But in some emergentism debates it becomes important to insist there's a "more is different" thing happening that's necessary to explain physical properties.

[glenstein]

Thanks for elaborating (would not have expected cracking knuckles to be a place where emergentism gets invoked!).

I think I agree with you that this notion of emergentism is wrong although I'm inclined to say it's more super wrong than respectably wrong. If you're interested in another philosopher, I agree with Jaegwon Kim that physics operates on casual closure, which leaves no room for this form of emergence.

[the_af]

Is Terrance Deacon a physicist?

[nathan_compton]

He is a philosopher. I'm a physicist and I've read his book and I found it interesting. Don't know what to tell you.

Most physicists don't know all that much about the philosophical underpinnings of their discipline, so I'd rather see what philosophers have to say about it anyway. But that isn't the point. I'm saying I thought the book was well put together and thought provoking, though I don't think his argument goes through. If that interests you, read it. If you prefer to let an arbitrary label filter out whose ideas you might entertain, I guess go for it.

[the_af]

Oh, no, you got me wrong. I was curious about his credentials, but this doesn't mean I don't find philosophy intriguing and fascinating. I would say humanity cannot exist without philosophy. Thinking about ourselves, thinking about knowledge, thinking about what we believe about knowledge, thinking about what is and what is not, thinking about thinking -- all of these are essential.

It's just that it matters to me whether it's a philosopher who's arguing about the physical properties of the universe or a physicist.

I do think you care a bit about labels and what they stand for, after all your first post didn't fail to mention you're a physicist!

[nathan_compton]

I think our confusion comes from the fact that from where I am standing there is not a lot of difference between philosophers and physicists because I'm mostly thinking about philosophers who are philosophers of physics or in adjacent fields.

[the_af]

I understand you're discussing philosophers engaged in epistemology, which are some of the philosophers closer to science.

I think epistemology is critical and necessary. It fascinates me. However, I wouldn't class them as physicists (unless they actually are, of course; you can wear more than one hat).

I admit I'm not familiar with Deacon, but Wikipedia states he's a "neuroanthropologist". I wonder how he would feel about a physicist making authoritative statements on neurobiology or anthropology!

This trap is not hypothetical. Remember when Michael Behe sided with Creationism and Intelligent Design, using his credentials as a scientist to try to discredit the theory of evolution? But he wasn't a scientist trained in that field, nor was he qualified to comment on it. He was a biochemist!

(I hope we've established labels do matter, insofar as they mean the person so labeled is immersed and has demonstrated high qualifications in the labeled field).

[nathan_compton]

I guess what I am sort of getting at is that no amount of trusting labels to delineate intellectuals will protect you from having to actually look at something and decide whether the person has something useful or interesting to say or not.

In this particular discussion I don't particularly care whether some Joe Schmoe on the street trusts or doesn't trust Terrance Deacon on the basis of what his degree says. It doesn't matter.

And I actually think your example of Michael Behe works towards my point of view. Credentials are a very weak signal of expertise on any subject, as he demonstrates. I think at the basic level of philosophy of science or physics or whatever, the idea that we can break up disciplines into clear chunks is just silly. At some point a serious intellectual just has to do the work for themselves to digest the ideas. I'd be worse off if I had skipped Deacon's book (which, incidentally and again, I don't think really lands) if I had skipped it because he didn't have a PhD that matched mine.