George F. R. Ellis - Is Emergence Fundamental?

How critical is emergence in how the world works? Emergence happens when the behavior of composite things is more complex than the additive behaviors of all its constituent parts would suggest. Emergence is operating everywhere. Once you see the results of emergence, it's obvious. Before, it's impossible.



George Francis Rayner Ellis is the Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[phuzbrain]

One of the sharpest most coherent explanations of reality that I've heard on this channel.

[desertshadow]

I am reading the comments after watching this intriguing video and come to the conclusion that this is the place to expand my mind. Very good discussions.

[phillipdyson]

Sound like the OSI 7 layer model we use in communications to partition the layers for interoperability. I think George found the truth. Absolutely love these videos.

[richardedward]

Finally. En explanation I can follow. Clear examples. Analogies. Stories. They can be effective teaching tools.

[Robinson]

I love this clear exposition by Mr. Ellis. The difference between top down causation is that there are multiple options, while bottom up there is only one. The first is called engineering, the second physical law. They are both real; but engineering is chosen from different potentialities (of physical law), while physical law is what is manifested. They are both real forms of causation, but physical law is the cause of manifestation, while engineering is the cause that *that* is manifesting and not this or that a.k.a. choice. Physical law is what is manifest and engineering is *choosing* what is manifest

However, does water choose to do complicated things where hydrogen or oxygen doesn't? Is it engineering a single choice from different possibilities? Don't think so. So I guess my argument stinks for emergence. Nevermind

[MrJPI]

BRAVO ! One of the best Closer to Truth videos ever imho.

[jklep]

Many physicists are focusing on the relational aspects of physics, Wheeler’s It from Bit is a foundational example, Carlo Rovelli has offered an interpretation of quantum theory that further elucidates this idea. Mr. Ellis’ argument is very deeply compelling, however, I’d like to hear how this “top down” aspect of his hypothesis applies at the instant of the Big Bang, and where the driving forces come into being from both bottom and top. Of course cosmic singularities in general beg this question. Thank you as always Dr. Kuhn for making these conversations available for us.

[AlexStock]

I think the inability of people to see both top-down and bottom-up is the cause of most of the science/religion conflict. Religious people tend to see mostly top-down, scientific people tend to see only bottom-up.

[christofeles]

In short--we are back where Aristotle brought us, appreciating that there are four kinds of causes. Formal causes are mechanisms. Or, as Hegel put it: "The actualized is the rational."

[nyworker]

Everything interacts with an environment. The laws at the lowest levels are nominal and universal l.e. electrons are attracted to protons, as we move up to the higher levels, interaction with a specialized environment take effect. The highest levels of the mental or consciousness are the enactive or embedded levels. Hence environment plays the role for the highest level or emergence effect.

[mr.spinoza]

Every example he used, assumes his own emergent Metaphysics within it. Every time there's a top-down "cause" it can be explained by the minute molecule being the first impetus for much to follow. When the piston pushes down on the gas, it moves every little atom and it itself is made from the first atom moving others. They join together, but it's composed, constituted and completely determined from each of its parts first causing or moving other things.
Obviously a hydrogen and oxygen molecule apart have different properties, but together they form one bond of minute parts doing all the work while interacting with eachother!

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

(0:50) *GE: **_"Real causation is both ways."_* ... Exactly! Existence evolved from an axiomatic mathematical point into a line, to a plane, to geometry, to conscious structure, to energy, to quarks to protons, to atoms, to molecules, to proteins, to cells, to organs, and ultimately into the sentient, self-aware humans who are now initiating a top-down reductionistic process to figure out how and why existence has emerged.

Existence is a purposely balanced combination of random emergence and reductionism that's based on a dichotomistic framework (0-1, positive-negative, quark-antiquark, matter-antimatter, proton-electron, black-white, life-death, good-evil, atheism-theism, etc.).

My point is that everything in existence emerged from a single mathematical point because without this point, ... _existence is pointless!_

[tomthumb]

Higher levels as they emerge are increasingly semiotic in character. Are the smallest particles already imminently semiotic, that’s to say: Do the have sign-ificance or meaning-fulness? E.g. Is there iconicity in their relationships?

[nocancelcultureaccepted]

Dear Dr. Kuhn, I strongly believe you must look into the relationship of free will and quantum mechanics.

[Raynaputi]

There's a sliver of truth in everything because we only experience a sliver.

[MrSanford]

Interesting thing is that an outside introduction of electrical impulses by another person to a person’s arm could cause that person’s arm to move without the owners choice. But then that would mean that the mind of the person introducing that outside Electrical charge is working in the same exact manner on that foreign arm in both choice but in observable mechanical interaction -in the same way the owner of the arm by choice could move his own arm. This is a little off-topic but this implies a parallel existence of collective mental force and collective bodily functions . Also anything that is a cause is immune to the effects of its own cause - implying that it’s a vessel for a certain cause but not the cause itself or it would have consumed itself long ago

[owencampbell]

Depending on how we understand the universe, I would say emergence is fundamental. Not only the big appearances but also the smallest particles, have a right in this universe of emergence. Why? and what meaning, and purpose it has, is another question that has to be found out.
I think we're too small and meaningless when it comes to facing the magnitude that surrounds us. Like ants or bees trying their best to settle in human houses, with no success, that same fate awaits us.

[jamesruscheinski]

What sets conditions for top down causation in nature, and how?

[J.M_Sterken]

It depends on how you look at the meaning of the word emergence. The word appearance has two different meanings to it. appearance and rise.
With that i want to say, you can appear but don't rise. And you can't rise without the appearance. But it is a way to conceal that what must be concealed, but not fundamental.
Now that doesn't mean that it isn't usefull.
Because that what appears will only rise when the information of what appears is being processed by onother appearance and so on.
If you want something fundamental, you must look for definitions with three different but the same meanings of the word you want to define.
But emergence can work.

[Arziil]

So the take home message? Emergence is recursive lyembedded, cyclical and scale invariant.