bumab Posted February 15, 2005 Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 Can anyone think of any emergent properties in the natural world? I was reading a post about a large collection of neurons possibly producing free will, and I'm not sure I'm conviced that's possible. Free will would be an emergent property- something that is not a property of neurons on their own, but exists in the collective of the brain. So are there other emergent properties? I was thinking stars- hydrogen doesn't fuse on it's own, it needs a lot of other molocules around... But no- that's not an emergent property, hydrogen can always fuse with another one, it just needs the correct conditions. Free will is something independent of conditions- neurons couldn't behave freely if they were compacted in the same amount of spagetti noodles. :) Maybe it's just late, but can anyone think of any other truely emergent properties in the natural world (i.e. non human created systems)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MortenS Posted February 15, 2005 Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 If you define "emergent properties" as properties that can not readily be explained with the laws on the level of organization below, you will find many examples of emergent properties in the world. Just think atoms -> molecules -> cell-> tissue -> organ -> organism -> population -> species -> ecosystem for example...each of these organization levels have emergent properties, with laws pertaining at each level of organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted February 15, 2005 Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 Here is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Emergent Properties: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bumab Posted February 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 Just think atoms -> molecules -> cell-> tissue -> organ -> organism -> population -> species -> ecosystem for example...each of these organization levels have emergent properties, with laws pertaining at each level of organization. Well, I was thinking that all those effects can be explained by some fundamental physical laws. While computation of all those things would be prohibitivally time consuming, it's possible. you know, I think i'm looking for a non-sensical issue... nevermind! i need more sleep! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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