Ourcellves? (Identity)

by romansh , Sunday, April 06, 2014, 20:28 (3883 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Sunday, April 06, 2014, 20:38

And I will quote Bedau again ...
> > >>> Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities?
> 
> Why leave out the remainder of the quote? :
> 
> "Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing."-Because it does not really help the argument one way or the other. But if you are arguing for emergence as something like magic (magical), lets be clear about this. -Later you say
> Comparing mechanistic movements of water to brain plasticity is so out of context, it is like comparing a waterfall to the act of urination. You've left out the action of a kidney, a miraculous organ.-You see emergence in a miraculous kidney. That gives me a reason that you do mean it in a magical sense. Fair enough.-Brain plasticity, waterfalls and urination all involve mechanistic processes as far as I can tell. Our brains and what we perceive as thoughts involve mechanistic processes.-And as for consciousness, we are under explicit orders to leave out consciousness in the dualistic sense. Which I am all to happy to do so.-But in short ... an eddie involves changes in electron density around atoms as does brain plasticity.