I am glad that there are people other than myself who find the notion of "emergent phenomena" to be code word for "magic" or "ignorance." Quite frankly I am mystified by how learned people, presumably taught the scientific method, could be so enamored with so called "emergent phenomena" but then I recall that practically the whole discipline of modern cosmology is little more than dressed up religion (anyone here know what possible cosmological consequences "Dark Energy" or "Dark Matter" have). But in that vein it bares mentioning that if it is impossible to discriminate between two things, then they are logically identical. Magic = achieving work through methods that do not involve "work effecting activity." Emergent phenomena = quality achieving methods that do not involve "quality achieving activity."
In order to deal with the topic of Emergent Phenomena one is required to comprehend what is called "Supervenience." I will leave it to the readers to explore Supervenience at their own discretion. (Standford encyclopedia of philosophy has a good article on it). Suffice it to say that some people have managed to convince themselves that a form of Supervenience can exist whereby "Top down causation" can occur.
Strong claims to emergent phenomena (which are essentially arguments regarding causation) require that the Supervenient qualities occur out of nowhere. This would be like in real life saying that Kinetic Energy occurs without there being any potential energy. Potential energy is not itself energy; hence the POTENTIAL part of its name. So can anyone point out why we "assume" the existence of potential energy in matter but that "potential intelligence" is not present in neurons?
Weak claims to emergent phenomena (which are essentially classification arguments) reference sets which include all objects in the universe (as Eliezer has pointed out), and as such are completely devoid of explanatory powers. Technically all things in the universe are "emergent properties" of physics. But we could potentially explain everything in the universe "if we had perfect knowledge of physics." We would need something like Laplace's daemon, but with perfect predictability we could derive neurochemistry. Once you have perfect neurochemistry knowledge, you can derive economics or any other set of behaviors you wish.
Example: When two triangles are brought together a square is the result (technically a quadrilateral, but I am keeping it simple). There is no property of triangles that is equivalent with "squareness." So "squareness" can be said to be an emergent property of triangles. Right now every person reading this should realize that something fishy is going on. Each triangle has "potential squareness" as part of its "list of qualities that it possesses." So when two triangles are brought together you get a square. You do not get something for nothing. The only difference between the triangles in this example and everything described as "emergent" is the degree of complexity.
The "proper way" Emergent Property is supposed to be used is when you have a universe of discourse that is random and note that "small sections of apparent order" occur. These properties are then "emergent" as they are not connected with any law that the universe itself possesses. The problem is that any application of this to a level of reality short of applying it to reality itself is entirely inconsistent with all non-paraconsistent logics.
A truly random "thing" does not exist. Such a "thing" could not interact with any thing we are aware of, since any interaction involves a two-way quality exchange/copy/removal,etc. Does anyone here have any idea what "mono-interactive interaction" looks like? The only way to achieve that is to have a "nothing" do something.
The very definition of "Nothing" is that it lacks any and all qualities. No qualities means no abilities. No abilities means "doing" is impossible. Nothing does not result in a change in anything.
Just because you are not aware of all the causal factors DOES NOT mean that there do not exist any causal factors. You can use this for any possible "emergent phenomena." Just because you are not aware of selection mechanisms for quantum physics does not mean that there are no selection mechanisms. Repeat ad nauseum.
MTF
"(anyone here know what possible cosmological consequences "Dark Energy" or "Dark Matter" have)"
Ok, this is the point where I started to question your logic (incidentally, apology for the tangent).
I agree that Dark Matter and Dark Energy feel like epicycles and phlogiston. HOWEVER, they also feel like that or felt like that at one point to all actual physicists.
Therefore, if you claim that they do not exist, you must both know what the standard answer to that question is (for if there is no standard answer science would have ...
The failures of phlogiston and vitalism are historical hindsight. Dare I step out on a limb, and name some current theory which I deem analogously flawed?
I name emergence or emergent phenomena—usually defined as the study of systems whose high-level behaviors arise or “emerge” from the interaction of many low-level elements. (Wikipedia: “The way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.”)
Taken literally, that description fits every phenomenon in our universe above the level of individual quarks, which is part of the problem. Imagine pointing to a market crash and saying “It’s not a quark!” Does that feel like an explanation? No? Then neither should saying “It’s an emergent phenomenon!”
It’s the noun “emergence” that I protest, rather than the verb “emerges from.” There’s nothing wrong with saying “X emerges from Y,” where Y is some specific, detailed model with internal moving parts. “Arises from” is another legitimate phrase that means exactly the same thing. Gravity arises from the curvature of spacetime, according to the specific mathematical model of General Relativity. Chemistry arises from interactions between atoms, according to the specific model of quantum electrodynamics.
Now suppose I should say that gravity depends on “arisence” or that chemistry is an “arising phenomenon,” and claim that as my explanation.
The phrase “emerges from” is acceptable, just like “arises from” or “is caused by” are acceptable, if the phrase precedes some specific model to be judged on its own merits.
However, this is not the way “emergence” is commonly used. “Emergence” is commonly used as an explanation in its own right.
I have lost track of how many times I have heard people say, “Intelligence is an emergent phenomenon!” as if that explained intelligence. This usage fits all the checklist items for a mysterious answer to a mysterious question. What do you know, after you have said that intelligence is “emergent”? You can make no new predictions. You do not know anything about the behavior of real-world minds that you did not know before. It feels like you believe a new fact, but you don’t anticipate any different outcomes. Your curiosity feels sated, but it has not been fed. The hypothesis has no moving parts—there’s no detailed internal model to manipulate. Those who proffer the hypothesis of “emergence” confess their ignorance of the internals, and take pride in it; they contrast the science of “emergence” to other sciences merely mundane.
And even after the answer of “Why? Emergence!” is given, the phenomenon is still a mystery and possesses the same sacred impenetrability it had at the start.
A fun exercise is to eliminate the adjective “emergent” from any sentence in which it appears, and see if the sentence says anything different:
Another fun exercise is to replace the word “emergent” with the old word, the explanation that people had to use before emergence was invented:
Does not each statement convey exactly the same amount of knowledge about the phenomenon’s behavior? Does not each hypothesis fit exactly the same set of outcomes?
“Emergence” has become very popular, just as saying “magic” used to be very popular. “Emergence” has the same deep appeal to human psychology, for the same reason. “Emergence” is such a wonderfully easy explanation, and it feels good to say it; it gives you a sacred mystery to worship. Emergence is popular because it is the junk food of curiosity. You can explain anything using emergence, and so people do just that; for it feels so wonderful to explain things.
Humans are still humans, even if they’ve taken a few science classes in college. Once they find a way to escape the shackles of settled science, they get up to the same shenanigans as their ancestors—dressed up in the literary genre of “science,” but humans are still humans, and human psychology is still human psychology.