Perhaps, higher existences or processes can form from lower existences or processes {emergence}| [Beckerman et al., 1992].
combination
Parts can combine by aggregation or by configuration. Aggregation adds parts to make larger things. Configuration relates parts to make new thing, such as wheels. Emergent phenomena are larger and more complex.
emergence
For emergence in systems, parts or event eliminations must affect other events or parts (J. S. Mill). Chemical reactions can be emergent when reactants combine into new configurations. Reactant elimination prevents configuration.
new substances or properties
Emergent phenomena make new properties or substances. Combining non-round parts can make something circular. Combining reactants can make new molecule types. New substances and properties are new configurations, not sums of existing physical properties. Emergent phenomena are not existing-property value changes. Summation is not emergence. Becoming warmer is not emergence. Beat frequencies and wave interference patterns result from wave summations and are waves and so not something new. However, emergence does not make new fundamental properties or substances. Low-level quarks, leptons, and their properties do not change.
physical laws
Emergence does not make new physical laws. Emergence applies physical laws. Emergent properties, objects, and events are theoretically predictable from physical laws. However, they may be too complex to predict.
no emergence
All physical phenomena are physical-component interactions according to physical laws. True emergence requires that new substances and properties be not explainable by lower level laws, substances, and properties. Therefore, there is no real emergence in the physical world, unless physical laws themselves emerge.
examples: evolution
Evolution makes new species and biological properties. However, evolution processes are not new. Evolution results from low-level feeding, reproductive, and defense activities of varying species members in competitive environments. Physical laws cause species evolution. Evolution theory is an abstract way of looking at survival. Evolution theory is shorthand for complex physical-law actions. No evolution-theory principle is an evolution requirement.
water and molecules
Hydrogen and oxygen can combine to make water. Water has new physical properties that are not sums of hydrogen and oxygen physical properties. However, chemical laws are not emergent. Chemical laws are shorthand for complex physical-law actions. No chemical law is a requirement for chemistry.
mind
Biological parts and configurations have combined to make larger and more complex brain structures and functions and so mind, which has new properties. Mind appears to be a whole and a new thing. Perhaps, complex physical-law actions make mind. Perhaps, mind is not directly explainable from brain parts, events, and properties and requires something truly new in universe.
Social Sciences>Philosophy>Metaphysics>Theories
6-Philosophy-Metaphysics-Theories
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Date Modified: 2022.0224