there are aggregate behaviors that cannot be understood from looking at the individual constituents in isolation
Can you give me an example of one of these behaviors? Perhaps my google-fu is weak (I have tried terms like “examples of top down causality”, “against reductionism”, “nonreductionist explanation of”), and indeed I have a hard time finding anything relevant at all, but I can’t find a single clearcut example of behavior which cannot be understood from looking at the individual constituents in isolation.
The fore-mentioned spontaneous symmetry breaking shows up in a wide variety of different systems. But, phase changes in general are probably good examples.
Can you give me an example of one of these behaviors? Perhaps my google-fu is weak (I have tried terms like “examples of top down causality”, “against reductionism”, “nonreductionist explanation of”), and indeed I have a hard time finding anything relevant at all, but I can’t find a single clearcut example of behavior which cannot be understood from looking at the individual constituents in isolation.
The fore-mentioned spontaneous symmetry breaking shows up in a wide variety of different systems. But, phase changes in general are probably good examples.