2.06 |
Emergence and Transcendence |
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION - THE PROBLEM
2 ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE
3 EMERGENT PROPERTIES AND EMERGENT OBJECTS
4 TRANSCENDENCE
5 CONCLUSIONS
5 CONCLUSIONS
From the above discussion, the following conclusions can be drawn.
| A |
To make sense of the phenomenology of the world, we have to allow for the relation of ontological dependence, which sits, in some intuitive sense, between identity and efficient causation. Material causation provides us with a simple example of ontological dependence.
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| B |
In some systems and in certain circumstances, features can emerge which are radically different to the fundamental features of the system.
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| C |
If the new features can not be attributed to the fundamental objects, then we must admit into our ontology new, emergent objects; they will then be ontologically dependent on the fundamental objects.
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| D |
When the emergent features constitute a causal framework different from the fundamental one, then we call the emergence a transcendence. The associated new objects transcend the original form of causality and the associated mode of explanation.
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| E | The two examples of transcendence are the emergence
of life, with its associated Darwinian dynamic, and the emergence
of the human person, whose actions are described in terms of final
rather than efficient causation. |
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| © Ian Dunbar 2001, All Rights Reserved |
| Last updated 01 July 2001 |