At one time I would have labelled the top Emergent and the bottom Fundamental, but David Deutsch convinced me that even this was a mistake. A mind of arbitrary power, given only the bottom row, could deduce all the others—granted. But finally I said to myself: could not this same mind, given only the complete row for Physiology, deduce the contents of Chemistry no less readily? The blue line has no direction
I very much like the post and think that the way of thinking and the diagrams are excellent. Furthermore, I’m not even sure you’d have to change much if you come to agree with what I say here. However, I’m not ready to agree with this statement quoted. I admit insufficient expertise in what I’m about to say, and would happily have someone explain to me I’m simply wrong, but I think that many different lower-level mathematical models can correspond to the same surface-level observations. Sean Carroll I think supports this claim in this talk (with the relevant stuff starting at 21:40 although it’s a good talk all over). I think a correct example of this would be: knowing the thermodynamics of a system doesn’t define all the positions and velocities of all the different particles. Lots of different lower levels could be true (but only one of them is). So the blue line sorta does have some direction, even though I agree that this ‘emergence’ talk is unnecessary… And now I realise I’m confused again. Hmm.
No, you’re absolutely right; in fact it would seem I was changing it while you were typing this comment! Please see my reply to shminux, who had the same objection.
I very much like the post and think that the way of thinking and the diagrams are excellent. Furthermore, I’m not even sure you’d have to change much if you come to agree with what I say here. However, I’m not ready to agree with this statement quoted. I admit insufficient expertise in what I’m about to say, and would happily have someone explain to me I’m simply wrong, but I think that many different lower-level mathematical models can correspond to the same surface-level observations. Sean Carroll I think supports this claim in this talk (with the relevant stuff starting at 21:40 although it’s a good talk all over). I think a correct example of this would be: knowing the thermodynamics of a system doesn’t define all the positions and velocities of all the different particles. Lots of different lower levels could be true (but only one of them is). So the blue line sorta does have some direction, even though I agree that this ‘emergence’ talk is unnecessary… And now I realise I’m confused again. Hmm.
No, you’re absolutely right; in fact it would seem I was changing it while you were typing this comment! Please see my reply to shminux, who had the same objection.
(Definitely lesson learned here!)