nick2
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The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms... Modern biologists were coming once more to the acceptance of something and that was a vital principle.
Given what we know now about the vastly complex and highly improbable processes and structures of organisms -- what we have learned since Lord Kelvin about nucleic acids, proteins, evolution,... (read more)
In line with previous comments, I'd always understood the idea of emergence to have real content: "systems whose high-level behaviors arise or 'emerge' from the interaction of many low-level elements" as opposed to being centrally determined or consciously designed (basically "bottom-up" rather than "top-down"). It's not a specific explanation in and of itself, but it does characterise a class of explanations, and, more importantly, excludes certain other types of explanation.
This comment hits the bullseye. The general idea of emergence is primarily useful is in pointing out that when we don't understand something, there are still alternative explanations to those that superstitiously posit a near-omniscience or that pretend to have information or an... (read more)
In line with previous comments, I'd always understood the idea of emergence to have real content: "systems whose high-level behaviors arise or 'emerge' from the interaction of many low-level elements" as opposed to being centrally determined or consciously designed (basically "bottom-up" rather than "top-down"). It's not a specific explanation in and of itself, but it does characterise a class of explanations, and, more importantly, excludes certain other types of explanation.
This comment hits the bullseye. The general idea of emergence is primarily useful is in pointing out that when we don't understand something, there are still alternative explanations to those that superstitiously posit a near-omniscience or that pretend to have information or an... (read more)
"Spinoza suggested that we first passively accept a proposition in the course of comprehending it, and only afterward actively disbelieve propositions which are rejected by consideration."
Whether this view is more accurate than DesCartes' view depends on whether the belief in question is already commonly accepted. When in the typical situation a typical person Bob says "X is Y, therefore I will perform act A" or "X should be Y, therefore we should perform act A", Bob is not making a statement about X or Y, he is making a statement about himself. All the truth or reality that is required for Bob to signal his altruism is that it be probable that he believes that X is Y or that X should be Y. The probability of this belief depends far more on what else Bob and his peers believe than it does about the reality or truth of "X is Y".