wrote:

> In article , Tim Tyler 

> wrote: 
> >Have you got a reference supporting your use of the term
"emergent"?
> >
> >I've seen it used on many an occasion - but I can't recall seeing it
> >used in the sense in which you appear to be using it.
> >
> >Two rather different uses of the term seems bound to cause confusion.
> 
> I gave a reference for my use of "emergent": Lloyd Morgan's 1923 book
> "Emergent Evolution".  And I gave a web link where you can read it.
> Morgan used it to mean that there is a "ghost in the
> machine".  (Interestingly enough, the later philosopher who coined that
> phrase did so sarcastically -- he was not advocating it).

Blitz, David. 1992. Emergent evolution : qualitative novelty and the
levels of reality. Dordrecht ; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

discusses the history of the notion, and the others (CD Broad and Jan
SMuts) who made much of it.

Morgan, Conwy Lloyd. 1923. Emergent evolution : the Gifford lectures
delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the year 1922, Gifford
Lectures. St. Andrews University ; 1922. London: Williams And Norgate.

is the book.

The phrase "Ghost in the machine" was coined by Arthur Koestler in his
attack on physicalism in the philosophy of mind (I believe he accused
Descartes as the original sinner in this regard, hence the title).
Keostler was a journalist who wrote philosophy and history rather well
to support his Lamarckian and vitalistic view of life.
> 
> Yes, there are two uses of "emergent", and it's the
complexity people who
> have changed the meaning.  Unless someone wants to advocate ghosts in
> machines, and they haven't here, I am going to refrain from involvement
> in this more prosaic discussion of why it's good to work at the right level.
> We should assume that "emergent" is being used in the newer
sense in this
> newsgroup.

To my mind, "emergent" means "I am surprised by the ways the compnents
of this thing make it behave, because it is too hard to calculate or we
do not know enough yet".

JS Mill, in his System of Logic (1842) argued that there were properties
of water that could not be reduced to the sum of the parts. These days
we can do that on computers. Another fine philosophical thesis destroyed
by actual science :-)
-- 
John Wilkins
"Listen to your heart, not the voices in your head" - Marg Simpson
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