Downward causation and the autonomy of weak emergence

Principia 6 (1):5-50 (2002)
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Abstract

Weak emergence has been offered as an explication of the ubiquitous notion of emergence used in complexity science (Bedau 1997). After outlining the problem of emergence and comparing weak emergence with the two other main objectivist approaches to emergence, this paper explains a version of weak emergence and illustrates it with cellular automata. Then it explains the sort of downward causation and explanatory autonomy involved in weak emergence

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Mark Bedau
Reed College

Citations of this work

Metaphysical emergence: Weak and Strong.Jessica Wilson - 2015 - In Tomasz Bigaj & Christian Wüthrich (eds.), Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities. pp. 251-306.
The strong emergence of molecular structure.Vanessa A. Seifert - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-25.
Synchronic and diachronic emergence.Paul Humphreys - 2008 - Minds and Machines 18 (4):431-442.

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References found in this work

Real patterns.Daniel C. Dennett - 1991 - Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):27-51.
The Search for Ontological Emergence.Michael Silberstein & John McGeever - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (195):201-214.
Weak emergence: Causation and emergence.Ma Bedau - 1997 - Philosophical Perspectives 11:375-399.

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