Tag: emergence

The Law of Emergence

In the entire known history of the universe, every single solitary case of emergence that we have observed has been a case of weak emergence. Weak emergence occurs when a system’s high level properties are reducible to simpler versions of these properties in the system’s subsystems. So, we are complex lifeforms that weakly emerge from the interactions of simpler lifeforms, the cells our bodies are made from. The evolution of humans started with the simplest form of matter, plasma in the early universe. Through billions of years of evolution, plasma evolved into complex atoms and then into complex organic molecules and finally to us. This evolution was the realization of weak emergence.

Strong Emergence

Strong emergence on the other hand, hypothetically occurs when a system’s high level properties are not reducible to its subsystems’ properties. This form of emergence is mythical in that it has never been observed anywhere at any time, ever. In fact, something mythical like strong emergence, is beyond scientific understanding and beyond the laws of nature. That is, strong emergence is in fact a supernatural phenomena. This hypothetical phenomena has as much observational support as any other supernatural phenomena like fairies or Santa Claus.

Materialism

Astonishingly, despite its irrational supernatural bent, to this day strong emergence continues to be assumed in the upper echelons of academia. If you are a philosophical materialist, as most scientists are, you necessarily assume that awareness (consciousness) strongly emerges from non-aware cells or at least from non-aware particles. Note that proclaiming that awareness “weakly” emerges from non-aware stuff is still strong emergence.

The Law of Emergence

The fact that weak emergence is ubiquitous and that strong emergence is mythical leads to what we could call the Law of Emergence. This law states that all emergence is weak, that every novel emergent phenomena can be explained in terms of its component parts. Since everything physical conforms to this law, (so far at least) this law should be considered to be one of the laws of physics. Materialists then are fine with violating the laws of physics just to maintain their strangely comforting but thoroughly unfounded beliefs.

Perhaps the reason materialists support strong emergence (plead only for awareness we might add) is that the Law of Emergence logically leads to panpsychism. Since awareness itself can’t be an emergent illusion, awareness must be fundamental. Human-level awareness would weakly emerge from cellular awareness and so on and so on all the way down to the fundamental units of matter. This is exactly how every physical property, like action, operates. Your complex arm movements weakly emerge from the simpler movements of your muscle cells and so on and so on.

The choice is yours, you can remain someone who thinks violating the laws of physics is acceptable or you could be rational. You could be a panpsychist.

Rational Panpsychism

Panpsychism is the belief that consciousness or experience is fundamental to matter. That is, the fundamental building blocks of matter, fundamental particles, have the simplest experience. When these particles are combined in the right way into complex systems, advanced experience emerges.

Rational or extreme panpsychism though has a problem with that latter assumption. Why would only complex systems have a unified experience of self? After all, in panpsychism fundamental particles are the simplest systems and they have experience, so why wouldn’t all systems, no matter how simple, have some kind of experience?

System Experience

A human can only have complex experience because the cellular systems a human is made of interact with one another. These interactions would shape or change experience in the supersystem. Our mind then is the awareness of these interactions. Or perhaps more accurately, these interactions are experience. This system awareness can only happen if each interaction of subsystems (in this case cells) is aware of itself as an interaction. Otherwise, experience would supernaturally emerge from non-experience rather than merely naturally change. Two humans interacting with one another would amount to a system which is aware of itself on some albeit primitive level as a system.

Combination Problem

This way of looking at panpsychism resolves the combination problem, an irritating thorn in the side of mainstream panpsychism. Rational panpsychism however, works in the same way as observable physical phenomena like movement. Muscle cells working together to move your arm are in fact, that arm movement. If only two cells interact there is still a movement, simple though it may be. It would involve special pleading to proclaim that interacting neurons would involve a special case that would not involve a shared experience. So, in rational panpsychism, the experience of subsystems combine to form system awareness just as muscle cell movements combine to form muscle movements.

Pantheism

Since the Universe itself is a system, that system must also experience. So rational panpsychism is identical to rational pantheism.

Conscious Rocks?

Unfortunately for many, rational panpsychism leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that rocks, corpses and even computers experience, albeit at an extremely primitive level. Logic though, cares not for primitive appeals to incredulity. For the rational, reason trumps intellectual comfort.

Decades from now what is known as panpsychism will be this rational panpsychism. It will reign because it rejects the irrational unfounded special pleading assumption that only complex systems can experience or that experience can strongly emerge from non-experience.

Simplest Proof for Panpsychism

Argues that materialism is unscientific nonsense relying on magical thinking and that panpsychism is the only available rational explanation for the emergence of complex experience.

Panpsychism is the idea that the building blocks of matter are capable of experience (consciousness). Below is what appears to be the simplest proof ever devised, advocating for the reality of panpsychism.

The prevailing view amongst scientists is that of materialism. Materialism claims that matter is fundamental, and that all things, including experience, result from material interactions with material things. But materialists cannot explain how experience emerges from non-experiencing matter. In other words, materialists believe that experience strongly emerges from matter.

Strong emergence is the belief that new phenomena can arise in a system that cannot be explained in terms of the systems components. Weak emergence on the other hand, is the belief that new phenomena that arise in a system are explainable in terms of the system’s components. By definition, strong emergence can never ever be justified with physical evidence since any uncovered evidence would now make the emergent phenomena weakly emergent. So strong emergence appears to be wholly unscientific and in effect a myth, indistinguishable from magic.

In direct contrast to materialists, panpsychists assume that complex experience in a system is explainable in terms of the simpler experience possessed by the components of the system. In other words, panpsychists seem complex experience as weakly emerging from simple experience. Panpsychists don’t invent a magical explanation, they merely assume complex experience weakly emerges in the same way that all other complex physical phenomena weakly emerge from simpler physical phenomena.

Proof Summary

1. Materialism assumes strong emergence of experience.
2. Strong emergence is a wholly unjustifiable myth, so materialism too is a myth.
3. Weak emergence occurs everywhere you look.
4. Only panpsychism assumes complex experience weakly emerges from simple experience.
C. Therefore only panpsychism is a justifiable rational (scientific) explanation for the evolution of experience.

Pantheism and Ockham’s Razor

When viewed under the lens of Ockham’s Razor, pantheism appears to rise above its competitors. Ockham’s Razor favors the explanation that makes the least number of assumptions while accommodating all relevant data.

In a previous article we presented a logical summary for a proof of God:

Argument Summary
  • Humans are composed of elementary particles or fields of “energy”.
  • Human mental states result from these field interactions.
  • Every complex physical property results from the shaping of simpler forms of that property in a system’s interacting subsystems.
  • It would involve special pleading to claim that mentality works dramatically differently from physicality.
  • It is therefore irrational to assume that a property like mentality would magically arise from nowhere when fields interact.
  • Therefore fields have simple mentality.
  • Field interactions shape this mental state making it more complex.
  • The more and sophisticated the interactions, the more complex the states.
  • The Universe is composed only of interacting fields.
  • Therefore the Universe must have some kind of mental life.
  • Ergo God.

Now this argument contains a couple of assumptions relating to panpsychism. 1) mental states don’t simply spring out of non-mental stuff; 2) mental properties arise the same way as physical properties.

These are all extremely reasonable assumptions. Physical phenomena don’t spring out of non-physical stuff so why would we entertain that mental phenomena could spring out of non-mental stuff? There is no justification whatsoever that we should treat mental phenomena completely differently than physical phenomena in that regard. In other words, we can’t plead that mentality is a special case with respect to physicality. We can’t engage in special pleading.

But pantheism’s chief competitor, materialism, does make two truly outlandish assumptions: 1) mental states spring out of non-mental stuff by some unknown unjustifiable process; 2) mental properties arise in a completely different way than physical properties. These are monumental assumptions. Since they require some as yet unknown mechanism, they are in fact supernatural assumptions.

Something is supernatural if it transcends the laws of nature. Materialism’s assumption that the mental strongly emerges from the physical seems to meet that definition. There is not a single solitary concrete example of the strong emergence of anything. So strong emergence goes against everything we know about the laws of nature. Strong emergence is in fact supernatural.

The Special Pleading of Mentality’s Strong Emergence

Humans are ultimately composed of elementary particles or fields. Every complex physical trait we have can be traced to primitive versions of this trait in these fields. Every physical thing we do is a form of movement. We can only perform these movements because the fields we are composed of have the ability to move.

These movements require energy. Our bodies have mechanisms to absorb and use energy to perform these movements. The same holds true with our elementary particles.

The ability to move our limbs doesn’t magically appear out of thin air at some point of development. It is instead directly traceable to each of our subsystems: cells, atoms, subatomic particles and elementary particles. There is not one physical attribute that is an exception to this rule. As such, complex physical phenomena are said to weakly emerge from the interactions of subsystems that possess simpler forms of these physical phenomena.

A rational person therefore would assume that this weak emergence rule would apply to our mental abilities too. That is, every complex mental phenomena we are capable of would have a simpler counterpart in each subsystem. This would mean though that the cells, atoms, subatomic particles and elementary particles that compose us would have simple forms of mentality too. That is, panpsychism is a reality.

The alternative to our subsystems possessing mentality involves the idea that mentality strongly emerges from physical sources that lack any mental capabilities. This odd scenario assumes that mentality is somehow inexplicably special. It is a unique case that applies only to mental capabilities but not physical properties. Yet no justification whatsoever has ever been presented for this special case. This is the very definition of special pleading.

Special pleading is a fallacy in which something is cited as an exception to a general or universal principle, without justifying the special exception. Those who oppose panpsychism necessarily must embrace the strong emergence of mentality. They dogmatically adhere to this irrational outlook with only the rudimentary logical fallacy of special pleading to justify it.

It is high time that all sane scholars reject the raving irrationality of mentality’s strong emergence and instead embrace the only rational alternative, panpsychism.

Panpsychism’s Combination Non-Problem

For many philosophers the so called combination problem is panpsychism’s Achilles’ heel. The combination problem refers to not understanding how the multitude of cells (or particles) possessing simple mentality, work together to form the complex mentality that we experience.

There really is no problem at all though. We don’t seem to have a problem understanding how our complex physical properties weakly emerge from simpler forms of those properties in the cells or particles that compose us. Why on Earth then would there somehow be a problem for mental properties?

This “problem” is really just a case of special pleading. Mental properties somehow inexplicably operate differently than physical properties because some philosophers simply find the idea of panpsychism distasteful.

Highly integrated cells working together cause new physical capabilities to emerge just as our advanced mental capabilities emerge from cells with far simpler mental capabilities. The mind’s subjectness is akin to the body’s systemness. Either both have a combination problem or neither does.

Has any actual justification ever been presented that the combination problem even exists? It does not appear so. This “problem” then is merely a dogmatic fantasy or delusion based on nothing but blind faith.

The real combination problem seems to apply to anti-panpsychists. How does phenomenal experience somehow magically arise from nowhere when the right combination of particles form? This is the real question that is consistently ignored by those with a deep-seated, blindingly irrational aversion to the eminently rational position of panpsychism.

Anti-Panpsychism’s Argumentum Ad Absurdum

Panpsychism is the idea that everything in the Universe has some sort of awareness or mind. Pantheism relies on panpsychism and extends it, so it is vitally important to not only prove pantheism true but panpsychism too. The reality of panpsychism can be proven with a very simple logical argument.

The Argument

We know from biology that thinking humans are collections of individual living entities called cells and that these cells are composed of molecules. We know from chemistry that molecules are composed solely of atoms. We understand from physics that atoms are composed of subatomic particles which ultimately are composed only of elementary particles. Elementary particles are simply packets of energy. Energy packets are just energy enclosed within a field.

Everything that a human does can be traced down to interactions of these energy fields. Nothing we do can be caused by anything else unless you believe in the existence of magical paranormal forces. So, the only logical conclusion is that human mental states result from the interactions of energy packets or energy. The Universe, all that is, is composed only of energy and therefore is a vast sea of mentality.

Argumentum Ad Absurdum

Another way to prove the reality of panpsychism is to illustrate the utter absurdity of the opposing argument that the building blocks of matter have no awareness and that awareness simply appears from nowhere at some indeterminate point.

So, according to some anti-panpsychists, a human zygote has no mentality but mentality magically switches on at some precise point in its development. No mentality, then after one more neural connection it magically appears from nowhere.

Other anti-panpsychists will admit that cells have mentality but maintain that the atoms that compose them don’t. So at some magically precise point in evolution, one more molecule was added to to a primitive cell and then mentality magically appeared from nowhere.

The blatant absurdity at work here is that no actual mechanism is proposed for the development of awareness. Awareness simply appears out of nowhere for no reason at some indeterminate point of development.

Our explanation on the other hand has no such problem, awareness is simply ubiquitous. Awareness is a fundamental property of the most simple form of matter, energy. When organized into a sufficiently complex intercommunicating system, the sum total of energy is aware of itself as a system.

Proving Panpsychism

Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mental component. That is, all things, from quantum fields to atoms to the Universe itself have some kind of mental life.

The proof for panpsychism is exceptionally simple. The main “argument” against panpsychism is not an argument but a purely faith-based belief propped up by ridiculous pseudoscience and absurd pseudo-logic.

Basically, the claim against panpsychism is that mentality is emergent. That is, mentality magically arises from non-mental stuff at some indeterminate point in evolution. Proponents of emergence strongly dispute that this process is anything magical. But magic involves supernatural occurrences. A new property, mentality, simply occurring at some indeterminate point for no known reason out of nowhere and from nothing would most certainly be a supernatural occurrence.

Now we actually understand emergence very well in physical systems. Every emergent physical property that we understand, is an illusion that is explainable by the physical properties of the system’s constituent parts. Take the hardness property of iron. Iron is made of iron atoms which are not hard but have bonding properties which result in them combining together. We interpret this bonding as hardness. The property of hardness is an illusion that only exists in our reality but not at the reality of the atomic level. That is, if you were able to shrink down to the level of the atom you would not experience hardness. You would instead see atoms packed together.

There is no reason to believe that mentality works in a different way. In fact, it would be an extraordinary claim that mentality would operate in an entirely different way than physical processes. Particularly when there is not a single shred of evidence or even a logical argument to support such an oddly magical explanation.

So in effect, refuting the magical emergent argument for mentality is actually panpsychism’s proof. As far as we know, all emergent physical processes are explainable by simpler physical processes of a system’s component parts. Therefore mentality will be explainable by the simpler mental properties of the system’s component parts as well. Since magical creation from nothing is impossible or at the least unjustifiable, the smallest system should have the simplest level of mentality. When these simple systems organize into complex systems we get not only complex physical properties but we can get complex mental properties too.

Argument Summary

P. Either mentality arises from non-mental stuff or all stuff has simple mentality that can be arranged into complex forms.
P. There is no justification whatsoever that mentality can magically arise out of nothing. Therefore this claim can be rejected.
P. Further, it is impossible for complex things to arise from nowhere. Such an explanation can therefore only be supernatural.
P. All complex physical properties result from the arrangement of simpler versions of these properties in a system’s subsystems.
P. It would involve special pleading to claim that mentality would operate in a dramatically different way than physicality.
C. Therefore panpsychism must necessarily be true.

When there is only one rational explanation for something, that explanation, while not technically proven true, is the one only the irrational will reject. When an explanation appeals to supernatural magical forces, that explanation will only be entertained by the non-rational.

Conclusion

So human mentality is in fact emergent. But it doesn’t magically arise out of thin air from non-mental stuff. Complex mentality instead emerges from a multitude of simple mental systems operating together in a complex system. That is, human-level mentality emerges exactly the same way as the physical human being emerges as cells grow and multiply. Panpsychism is therefore an undeniable fact that philosophy and science needs to come to terms with.