"Ted King" <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:lodited-54F9F9.06493716092003@newssvr13-ext.news.prodigy.com...

In article <bk6iqn$dd4$2@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
"Martin" <ignore@interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:

"Ted King" <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:lodited-DA92B6.17581215092003@news.la.sbcglobal.net...

In article <165948e8.0309150224.7eac278b@posting.google.com>,
godwyn@interchange.ubc.ca (MGodwyn) wrote:

Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-DD0792.20330414092003@news.la.sbcglobal.net>...

Is there a consensus that you know of amongst professional
philosophers about what the term means? Is it used interchangeably

with

"supervenient property"? It seems to me that most things that I

have

seen that have been identified as emergent properties seem to be
experiences people have as conscious beings - not intrinsic to the
objects to which the properties are ascribed, independent of the
conscious experience. I have questions about this but I'm not sure

I

have a proper grasp of the issue.

The short answer is yes - probably a consensus, but *far* from a
unanimous one. The same issues permeate what "supervenience" is.

Here's the best way to think of an emergent property: it is a

property

of an *ensemble* that is not a property of any of its inidividual
parts, and hence not reducible to its individual parts. The clearest
example is the wetness of water. It's clearly the case that water is
wet, but no single H2O molecule is wet. The wetness of water is a
property of *ensembles* of H2O molecules that *emerges* from the
properties of individual water molecules.

Another way to think about it is in constrast with say, the mass of

a

body of water. Mass is a property that a body of water has and its
having this property is reducible to facts about the masses of the
individual molecules of water. There are not two properties: mass of
the body of water and masses of the individual molecules, there is

one

property. Once you've stated the mass of all the inidividual
molecules, there is *nothing more to say* about the mass of the body
of water.

Okay, it is with the notion of "wetness" that I first had questions
about "emergent properties". Wetness seems to usually be discussed in
terms of being an emergent property of water, but I think there is

some

ambiguity about this with respect to water. Are we talking about the
experience "wet" when we touch water or is this meant to pertain to

the

liquidity of water?

Wetness is not an *experience* of water, it's an objective property of

water

that involves its liquidity but probably also involves its tendency

cling to

surfaces. Room temperature mercury is liquid but I would hesitate to say

it

is "wet" because its surface tension means it repels away from surfaces.
I've no idea whether molten iron is wet - I've not enough experience of

it.

I don't think it is typical to speak of molten iron

as being wet, yet it is clearly liquid. Does molten iron exhibit an
emergent property "liquidity"?

Yes.

If not, to me that suggests that when we

speak of the wetness of water as being an emergent property, it is the
*experience* of touching water we are talking about. If molten iron

does

exhibit an emergent property, liquidity, then when we speak of the
wetness of water as an emergent property, are we speaking of "emergent
property" as an experience or as a state of matter that does not

depend

on conscious experience?

As a state that does not depend on conscious experience.

I think one of the things I can't get straight is just what a

"property"

is.

That's a tough one - that's such a basic notion that I suspect it is
primitive. A property is what predicates name. Anything that can be true

of

something is a property of something. I think I have a book somewhere of
selected articles on precisely that topic: properties.

Great, I think all of what you say above helps me move along a little
bit. Here's the question that now arises for me: if a property is
something that is true of something and "wetness" is about the surface
tension of a liquid, then I wonder how to evaluate "wetness" as a
property. It seems to me that amount of surface tension liquids have
forms a continuum (and, of course, depends on the nature of surface it
is tensioned by). If there is a continuum of surface tension amongst
liquids, then how do we arrive at an objective assessment of enough
surface tension to say that a liquid is "truly" wet? Are some liquids
more truly wet than others? This fuzziness leads me to think that though
surface tension may be a measurable phenomenon, "wetness" is a
subjective delineation. That is, as an emergent property "wetness" is in
the eye of the beholder - the consequence of conscious experience; i.e.,
those liquids with the amounts of surface tension that are closest to
those that elicit certain tactile sensations are the ones we say have
the emergent property of being wet.

"Weight" is a continuum, too, but that doesn't mean I don't really have the
property of weighing 154 pounds. Just because a property is continuous does
not mean that there is not a *precise* point along the continuum on which
something lies. Continuous does not entail fuzziness. However, *judgements*
about properties and property boundaries *can* be more or less fuzzy. I say
I weigh 154 pounds, but is that *false* if I happen to weigh 154.1 pounds?
No, because the claim is a claim about a *range* of weights. In this case, I
think the judgement has very precise boundaries - if I weigh less than 153.5
pounds or more than 154.5 pounds, then the claim is false. However, some
judgements have vague boundaries. Being a "heavy" human for example. This
does not mean that some people do not clearly have the property of being
heavy, it just means that there are marginal cases. My underlying point is
that you should not confuse the fuzziness in the meaning of words with a
fuzziness in properties. Many words have fuzzy boundaries because they refer
to fuzzy concepts. But the properties that constitute these concepts can be
entirely unfuzzy and objective. Just because "heavy human" is a concept with
vague boundary conditions, does not mean that I am not objectively and in a
precise sense heavier (or lighter) than you.

In one way of looking at it, it seems as though properties have an

existence independent of a conscious entity having experiences and
forming judgements about how reality is to be perceived. But in

another

way of looking at it, it seems as though anything that we call a
property is just us as conscious entities creating thought "things"
(properties) that don't exist independent of us as conscious entities.
If the latter is the case, it seems as though the notion of emergent
property is just us layering our thoughts about reality.

Well, I really don't agree with the properties as created idea. But

that's

because I'm a metaphysical realist who thinks that a correspondence

theory

of truth is the only one worth a damn. The sun was a star long before

humans

arrived on the scene to think up the concept of a star. The properties

that

the sun possesed were not created by humans. What *was* created was the
concept of a star and the predicate "is a star".

Again it seems to me there is a subjective element that plays a role. If
astronomic gas balls come in a continuum from Jupiter like objects (said
not to be a star) to a brown dwarf (star?) at what point on the
continuum do we begin saying it is true that this object is a star?
Properties that occur as continuums seem to make "true" and "not true"
designations that are dependent on our sensibilities and not objectively
so.

We simply make a choice on the basis of what seems most useful. The choice
of what concepts to use is entirely down to us, but which things fall under
those concepts once we have made that decision is objective, and can be, in
the concept is precise enough, also be precise. The "subjective element"
comes down to what concepts we will use and where we choose to place the
boundaries of those concepts. But that does *not* entail any subjectivity
whatsoever in the properties of objects.

Today, the sun is said to be a star; Why? because it is an objective fact
that it has a range of properties that places it under that concept. Under
the current definition it *is* a star. That's just an objective fact about
the sun. But now suppose that tomorrow we decide to redefine "star" to mean
an object at least twice the mass of the sun. Has the sun changed any of its
properties? No. Our linguistic decision did not make the blindest bit of
difference to the sun - it carried on being exactly the same with exactly
the same properties as before. Has it *stopped* being a star? No. It *never
was* a star under the *new* definition of "star", and it remains a star
under the *old* definition of "star". It's properties have not changed! All
that has happened is that we've decided to use a different concept for the
word "star". The way we use words does not (with the exception of socially
constructed properties such as money and marriage) change the properties of
things.

Now *some* other predicates refer to properties that obtain only in

relation

to ourselves and our thoughts. For example "causes sun tans in humans".

That

is a property of the sun that only obtained when there came to be

humans.

"Cheering to humans after a rainy spell" is another property of the sun

that

depends on our existence and specifics of our psychology. This does

*not*

make such properties something that we "create", however. It just means

that

it is relationally dependent on our existence.

And some other predicates refer to properties that *are* created by us.

"is

married" "is a ten dollar bill" are examples.

In doing more research, I ran into this:

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/notes/emergence.html

"Emergent properties are usually properties that are more easily
understood in their own right than in terms of properties at a lower
level. This suggests an important observation: Emergence is a
psychological property. It is not a metaphysical absolute. Properties
are classed as "emergent" based at least in part on (1) the
interestingness to a given observer of the high-level property at hand;
and (2) the difficulty of an observer's deducing the high-level property
from low-level properties."

I imagine you need to read more of the article to get the proper context
for this quote, but I am curious about your thoughts on his conclusion.

Firstly, in the context he seems not to endorse this characterisation. It is
definition (3) and he begins the next section with definition (4) and "This
*still* can't be the full story though" (my emphasis). He then goes on to
offer further definitions that he seems to like much more. He seems to be
starting with the least worthy definitions and ending with his favoured
definition.

Secondly, it's just a *bad* argument as it stands.

P1: Emergent properties are usually properties that are more easily
understood in their own right than in terms of properties at a lower level.
C1: Emergence is a psychological property

David Chalmers says that the conclusion is "suggested" by the premise. I
think that is too quick. I think the premise is a *derivative* feature of
emergent properties not of the essence of emergent properties. Consider the
following parallel:

P1: Presidents are usually men
C1: Presidency is a male property.

It just doesn't follow from the fact that most things (or even everything)
in a certain class has a property, that that property is essential to being
in that class or what makes it a member of that class.

M.

P.S. I went to dinner with David Chalmers a few months back. Nice guy
(although he never did give me comments on a paper I sent him).