Process and emergence: Normative function and representation
Axiomathes - An International Journal in Ontology and Cognitive Systems 14:135-169 (2004)
| Abstract | Emergence seems necessary for any naturalistic account of the world — none of our familiar world existed at the time of the Big Bang, and it does now — and normative emergence is necessary for any naturalistic account of biology and mind — mental phenomena, such as representation, learning, rationality, and so on, are normative. But Jaegwon Kim’s argument appears to render causally efficacious emergence impossible, and Hume’s argument appears to render normative emergence impossible, and, in its general form, it precludes any emergence at all. I argue that both of these barriers can be overcome, and, in fact, that they each constitute reductios of their respective underlying presuppositions. In particular, causally efficacious ontological emergence can be modeled, but only within a process metaphysics, thus avoiding Kim’s argument, and by making use of non-abbreviatory forms of definition, thus avoiding Hume’s argument. I illustrate these points with models of the emergent nature of normative function and of representation | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRichard Campbell & Mark H. Bickhard (2011). Physicalism, Emergence and Downward Causation. Axiomathes 21 (1):33-56.
Paul Humphreys (2008). Computational and Conceptual Emergence. Philosophy of Science 75 (5):584-594.
Carl Gillett (2002). The Varieties of Emergence: Their Purposes, Obligations and Importance. Grazer Philosophische Studien 65 (1):95-121.
Irene Appelbaum (2004). Two Conceptions of the Emergence of Phonemic Structure. Foundations of Science 9 (4).
Mark Bickhard (2011). Some Consequences (and Enablings) of Process Metaphysics. Axiomathes 21 (1):3-32.
Mark H. Bickhard (2001). Function, Anticipation, Representation. AIP Conference Proceedings 573:459-469.
Mark H. Bickhard (2001). The Emergence of Contentful Experience. In T. Kitamura (ed.), What Should Be Computed to Understand and Model Brain Function? World Scientific.
Mark H. Bickhard (1998). A Process Model of the Emergence of Representation. In G. L. Farre & T. Oksala (eds.), Emergence, Complexity, Hierarchy, Organization, Selected and Edited Papers From the Echo Iii Conference. Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica.
Mark H. Bickhard (2009). The Interactivist Model. Synthese 166 (3):547 - 591.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads59 ( #16,458 of 550,917 )Recent downloads (6 months)16 ( #3,956 of 550,917 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
