The viability of Weak emergence

Wilson considers and responds to a range of objections to the schema for Weak emergence and the associated ‘subset of powers’-based approach to realization. These include that satisfaction of the conditions in the schema is compatible with anti-realism about, reductionism about, or physical unacceptability of the emergent entities or features, or is not necessary for physically acceptable emergence. Each challenge admits of one or more responses available on any sensible implementation of the schema for Weak emergence; certain additional responses draw on features of Wilson’s preferred accounts of Weak emergence, appealing to the determinable/determinate relation or to an elimination of degrees of freedom.

Complex systems

Wilson considers whether complex systems are either Weakly or Strongly emergent. She first traces the demise of nonlinearity as criterial of Strong emergence, and offers a new criterion in terms of apparent violations of a conservation law. By these lights, the Strong emergence of complex systems remains a live but currently unmotivated possibility. Wilson then argues that while appeals to algorithmic incompressibility, dynamic self-organization, and universality do not establish the Weak emergence of complex systems, cases can be made that these or related features satisfy the conditions in the schema. Most promisingly, complex systems exhibiting universality have eliminated degrees of freedom (DOF), and so are Weakly emergent by lights of a DOF-based account; and other complex systems (gliders in the Game of Life; flocks of birds) may also be seen as Weakly emergent by these lights.

Free will

Wilson considers whether free will is either Weakly or Strongly emergent. She starts by drawing on Bernstein and Wilson (2016) to present a framework for connecting positions on the problem of free will with positions on the problem of mental (higher-level) causation. Bernstein and Wilson argue that compatibilist accounts implement a ‘proper subset’ strategy relevantly similar to that implemented by nonreductive physicalists/Weak emergentists; here Wilson extends this result to establish that the compatibilist strategy entails satisfaction of the conditions in Weak emergence. Wilson then argues that libertarian accounts implement a ‘new power’ strategy entailing satisfaction of the conditions on Strong emergence. Wilson goes on to suggest that free will of the compatibilist/Weakly emergent variety is plausibly widespread, and to present a novel argument for taking some instances of seemingly free choice to be Strongly emergent.

Metaphysical Emergence

The special sciences and ordinary experience present us with a world of macro-entities trees, birds, lakes, mountains, humans, houses, and sculptures, to name a few which materially depend on lower-level configurations, but which are also distinct from and distinctively efficacious as compared to these configurations. Such appearances give rise to two key questions. First, what is metaphysical emergence, more precisely? Second, is there actually any metaphysical emergence? In Metaphysical Emergence, Jessica Wilson provides clear, compelling, and systematic answers to these questions. Wilson argues that there are two and only two forms of metaphysical emergence making sense of the target cases: ‘Weak’ emergence, whereby a macro-entity or feature has a proper subset of the powers of its base-level configuration, and ‘Strong’ emergence, whereby a macro-entity or feature has a new power as compared to its base-level configuration. Weak emergence unifies and accommodates diverse accounts of realization (e.g., in terms of functional roles, constitutive mechanisms, and parthood) associated with varieties of nonreductive physicalism, whereas Strong emergence unifies and accommodates anti-physicalist views according to which there may be fundamentally novel features, forces, interactions, or laws at higher levels of compositional complexity. After defending each form of emergence against various objections, Wilson considers whether complex systems, ordinary objects, consciousness, and free will are actually either Weakly or Strongly metaphysically emergent. She argues that Weak emergence is quite common, and that Strong emergence, while in most cases at best an open empirical possibility, is instantiated for the important case of free will.

Misconceptions on Effective Field Theories and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking: Response to Ellis’ Article

In an earlier paper Luu and Meißner (arXiv:1910.13770 [physics.hist-ph]) we discussed emergence from the context of effective field theories, particularly as related to the fields of particle and nuclear physics. We argued on the side of reductionism and weak emergence. George Ellis has critiqued our exposition in Ellis (arXiv:2004.13591 [physics.hist-ph]), and here we provide our response to his critiques. Many of his critiques are based on incorrect assumptions related to the formalism of effective field theories and we attempt to correct these issues here. We also comment on other statements made in his paper. Important to note is that our response is to his critiques made in archive versions arXiv:2004.13591v1-5 [physics.hist-ph]. That is, versions 1–5 of this archive post. Version 6 has similar content as versions 1–5, but versions 7–9 are seemingly a different paper altogether (even with a different title).

Stand evaluation, crop estimation and yield analysis of winter wheat for the optimization of yields

The authors have been carrying out stand evaluation, crop estimation and yield analysis in winter wheat since 2012. The sampling areas were assigned at the fields of the Training Farm of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of Széchenyi István University Mosonmagyaróvár according to the structure of the cropping system. According to their observations the value of field emergence is always lower than the laboratory germination. The weak emergence is important because the lower plant density cannot be compensated by the increased tillering in spite of having larger plant growth space. It is proven by the fact that they detected strong productive tillering even at 5 and 10 mm plant spacing while there were single-spiked plants at 40-50 mm plant spacing as well. The analysis revealed that the total ear mass and grain mass of wheat plants bearing two or more ears is almost the double than that of the single-spiked plants. It was a further basic experience that the largest ear of ”multiple-spiked” plants is always heavier than the single ear of one-spiked plants. Plants with intense tillering and more ears demonstrate the importance of proper seedbed preparation and drilling and the significance of sowing good quality seeds. These are the factors that determine field germination and emergence, influence the speed and intensity of initial development and by all these factors the sufficient productive tillering. The authors emphasize the use of exact and objective methods at crop estimation, e.g. the relationship between the ear mass and the yield which is in strong correlation whilst ear length and grain mass are not suitable for a precise estimation. The authors conclude that crop estimation and yield analysis must be inevitable tools of modern crop production and will be particularly important in precision agriculture. These tools also qualify the job done by farmers and helps to identify the areas that require special attention.

Synchronic and Diachronic Emergence

This chapter discusses a number of different kinds of diachronic emergence, noting that they differ in important ways from synchronic conceptions. It argues that Bedau’s weak emergence has an essentially historical aspect, in that there can be two indistinguishable states, one of which is weakly emergent, the other of which is not. As a consequence, weak emergence is about tokens, rather than types, of states. The chapter concludes by examining the question of whether the concept of weak emergence is too weak and notes that there is at present no unifying account of diachronic and synchronic concepts of emergence.

Computational and Conceptual Emergence

A sixfold taxonomy for emergence is presented into which a variety of contemporary accounts of emergence fit. The first dimension of the taxonomy consists of inferential, conceptual, and ontological emergence; the second dimension consists of diachronic and synchronic versions of each of these types of emergence. The adequacy of weak emergence, a specifically computational form of inferential emergence, is then examined, and its relationship to conceptual emergence and ontological emergence is detailed. Arguments are given assessing whether the end state of a weakly emergent process has to satisfy a novelty condition and new argumet is provided for the conclusion that diachronic emergence involves tokens of states.