On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 4:44 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> With aggregativity defined that way, Wimsatt notes that "Very few system > properties are aggregative." Then what? Is the point that "emergence, > defined as failure of aggregativity" has now been fully characterized? > Problem solved? I wouldn't agree with that. I think there is more to say > than just a negative definition. > Very few system properties are aggregative, almost all system properties are emergent. There are a lot of varieties of emergence to be dealt with. Maybe all the short, catchy slogans have been already been taken? An interesting example to which this approach might be applied is an ideal > gas. Such a gas satisfies all the aggregativity conditions. Yet it has > properties (the gas laws) that the individual components lack. > Ah, let me count the ways: a simple hard sphere gas, as in Helium or Neon, which adds finite volume and van der Waals forces to the ideal gas; the diatomic hard sphere gas, as in Hydrogen or Oxygen, which adds rotational angular momemtum and vibrational energy; the asymmetric diatomic gas, such as Carbon Monoxide, where the center of gravity is off center; the polar asymmetric diatomic gas, such as Hydrogen Fluoride, which has a positive and negative ends; water vapor, which forms hydrogen bonded clusters; ionic gases; molecules with internal rotational degrees of freedom; oxygen and ozone in equilibrium with ultra-violet radiation; smog; vog; weather; solar wind; .... These are all sorts of non-ideal gases; all, more or less, non-aggregate in their properties; all, more or less, introducing new ways to be emergent; all, more or less, reducible to aggregate properties if you add enough information about the particle structure and theory about inter-particle interactions. This helps? -- rec --
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