Abstract
Recent philosophical discourse on emergence has developed with particular concern for the distinction between weak and strong emergence (e.g., Bedau 1997; Chalmers 2002) and with the primary focus on detailed analysis of the concept of supervenience (e.g., Kim 1984; 1999; McLaughlin 1997). However, in the last decade and as a new departure, attention has been devoted to the distinction between synchronic and diachronic emergence (e.g., Humphreys 2008a, b; Kirchhoff 2014). In this philosophical context, there is an ongoing general belief that these two concepts (diachronic and synchronic) are so different that it is impossible to establish for them a general unifying framework (Humphreys 2016a, b). It is the purpose of this paper to support an alternative view, i.e. that these concepts are different but not mutually exclusive, and that attending to appearance and persistence can, in this context, lead to an acceptable unifying framework for these two, differing concepts of emergence.
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Notes
Although it was a relatively new aspect in the modern discourse on emergence, the prototype of such a concept was already present in classical British emergentism. This is expressed explicitly primarily in the work of S. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolution (1923), in which both aspects of emergence (synchronic and diachronic) are emphasized.
For the purposes of this article I do not consider it important to go into too much detail regarding the implementation of the cellular automaton. The important part is the existence of a two-dimensional grid of cells which can take on two values—full/empty, or in the context of the Game of Life—alive/dead. A few simple elementary rules govern each sequential step in the automaton's evolution, resulting in a certain value for each cell, depending on the status of cells in the immediate vicinity. The cells' values are recalculated in each step and hence the final pattern of a given unit composed of the cells changes as well. Many illustrative implementations of cellular automata can be found on the internet and the reader may find there the graphic examples needed to illustrate the topics discussed.
Our presupposition is that we can define the terms "levels of nature" and "scales of nature" in relation to the one identical content. The important role in this kind of ontology is played by "entities" and their relative autonomy (see Batterman 2015). If there are distinguishable and relatively stable entities with relatively stable properties that are moving according to relatively persistent laws then there is sufficient reason to regard this part or domain as a level of nature. In addition, another important reason is that there are relationships with and between such other levels. Levels as "scales" are then an expression of the important fact that levels are not some mechanical hierarchy but that all levels belong to the one compound.
A "blinking pattern" is a periodically changing pattern which remains the same after some steps of generation of CA. In a simple example, there is one pattern in time t, another pattern in t + 1 and this sequence repeats ad infinitum.
Unlike some recent conceptions of emergence, e.g., transformational emergence (TE), which postulates emergent changes in domains rather than between levels, our unification counts upon levels which are strictly determinable in reality at the expense of domains which can be defined haphazardly. The reason why we should preserve domains shall be shown in Abbott's explanation of domain implementation.
I owe thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing up this example.
The Gosper Glider Gun or Breeder, specific examples of patterns different from the Glider, are more complicated patterns and they need more steps of CA to repeat their pattern integrity. They spread in a dynamical sense over larger time periods than the Glider. Specifically, the Glider needs 4 steps or periods, the Gosper Glider Gun 30 periods, the Breeder 64 periods. There are many types of Breeder, which is generally a pattern that exhibits quadratic growth by generating multiple copies of a secondary pattern (e.g. Glider Gun), each of which then generates multiple copies of a tertiary pattern (e.g. Gun).
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This work was supported by the Grantová Agentura České Republiky (Grant no. 17-16370S).
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Havlík, V. Appearance and Persistence as the Unity of Diachronic and Synchronic Concepts of Emergence. J Gen Philos Sci 51, 393–409 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-020-09506-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-020-09506-6