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Wind comments on The Futility of Emergence - Less Wrong
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Aren't superconductivity and ferromagnetism perfect examples of emergent phenomena?
Yes. So are non-superconductivity and non-ferromagnetism. That's the problem.
Uh. No. Non-superconductivity is not usually considered as an example of emergence. Because the non-superconductive system is composed of smaller subsystems which are themselves non-superconductive. Same goes for non-ferromagnetism. Not "emergent" because nothing new is emerging from the collective that was not already present in the components.
And even if what you wrote were true it would be a problem only if emergence were being used as an explanation. But, outside of the philosophy literature, it almost never is used that way. You are tilting at windmills here.
The apparent disagreement here, comes from different understandings of the word "non-superconductivity".
By "non-superconductivity", Yudkowsky means (non-super)conductivity, i.e. any sort of conductivity that is not superconductivity. This is indeed emergent, since conductivity does not exist at the level of quantum field.
By "non-superconductivity", Perplexed means non-(superconductivity), i.e. anything that is not superconductivity. This is not emergent as Perplexed explained.