TPF : Emergent Properties and Quantum Mechanics

[Gnomon]

What is the relationship, if any, between emergent properties and quantum mechanics?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/505326

The language used in the discription of Emergent Properties seems very similar to the language used to describe quantum mechanics. The relationship - if any - seems to be philosophical. Can someone provide references? — Don Wade

Generally, Emergent Properties are characteristic of a system-as-a-whole, rather than of individual components of the system. Those collective properties seem to mysteriously emerge from complex interrelationships between parts of the whole. The emergent effects are called "weak" when the ultimate cause is hidden within the complexity of causation. But when the effect can be traced back to a specific cause, it is considered to be "strong". So, Quantum Mechanics is a misnomer, because the links between causes & effects are seldom traceable to an obvious unbroken chain of causation. That's why I say that Quantum Theory has crossed over the line between reductive Science & holistic Philosophy.

Emergence in Philosophy :
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors which emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Emergence in Physics :
The term emergent is used to evoke collective behaviour of a large number of microscopic constituents that is qualitatively different than the behaviours of the individual constituents.
https://www.nature.com/articles/npjquantmats201624

Emergence is a Holistic phenomenon, that can't be explained via reductive methods of science :
Reductionism breaks the world into elementary building blocks. Emergence finds the simple laws that arise out of complexity. These two complementary ways of viewing the universe come together in modern theories of quantum gravity.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-solve ... -20170907/

Causality in a quantum world :
. . . quantum superposition can create situations in which cause-and-effect relationships between events are not well-defined.
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/1 ... 328a/full/

[Gnomon]

What is the minimum number of parts required to constitute a system? I think two! — Pop

That's a hard question to answer. A system is composed of interacting parts, not just to a particular number of elements. For example, a pile of sand might contain thousands of grains, but each grain reacts to inputs of energy independently. Yet, if you add some lime cement to the pile, it will soon harden into the integrated system of grains we call "concrete", with emergent structural qualities not found in the grains. In that case, the multiple grains act together as one. Such interaction is what the site linked below calls "Process".

1. Sorites paradox : If one removes a single grain of sand from a heap, they still have a heap. If they keep removing single grains, the heap will disappear. Can a single grain of sand make the difference between heap and non-heap? [Holism]
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page85.html

When you look at any system, in its simplest form, it has 3 components. It’s what I’ll call IPO: Input, Process, Output.
https://www.asianefficiency.com/systems ... ry-system/

If I follow the logic, it leads me to conclude that the relationship of information and energy is matter, where matter is an emergent property! I think this is correct. . . . enformation = matter. As per above post. What do you think? — Pop

Yes. But it depends on what you mean by "matter". Aristotle's Hylomorphism (matter + form) was not referring to any particular lump of actual Matter, but as the general Potential to become a particular material object. For example, raw copper & tin, have the potential to become bronze, and a shapeless lump of bronze has the potential to become a statue of Zeus. But what actualizes that potential is the mind or soul of the artist, who enforms the raw materials.

So, being picky, I would reword your equation as Raw Material + Enformation = Artwork (a physical work of art). Or perhaps : matter (lower case) + Enformaction (guided energy) = Novel System (with emergent properties). Or, more to your point : Primal Energy (input) + Natural Laws (process) = Organized Matter (output). That equation is referring to the energetic blast of energy from the Big Bang, which becomes organized (processed) into matter (atoms of hydrogen). Anyway, your equation of Enformation with Matter is essentially what Einstein was saying in (E = MC^2) : raw energy + the enforming power of light vibrations = produces the emergent property of matter called "Mass". Sorry, I may be just complicating your elegant equation. :yikes:

[Gnomon]

Not every change in characteristics is emergence. In your example, the behavior of the concrete is directly causally related to the physical and chemical characteristics of the sand and cement. That's not emergence. — T Clark

Are you saying that concrete does not have emergent (structural) qualities that are not characteristic of the sand & cement separately? Since the new properties of the combined elements are directly caused by combining specific chemical qualities, I'd call it "Weak Emergence". But, I was only trying to give a simple example of emergence. A complex example of "Strong Emergence" would involve the same kind of technicalities and uncertainties as the "Hard Problem" of Consciousness.

[Gnomon]

The relationship actualizes the potential. Kaiser Basileus nailed it! — Pop

Yes. It's the mind of the artist that imagines the future interrelations that are currently only potential. The artwork is the final (actualized) product or output of combining several raw potentials. Hence, the art is in the Actualization of Potential.

Enformation : The Latin root “informare” meant to give recognizable (meaningful, significant) shape to something. In that sense a sculptor “in-forms” a blank slab of marble with a physical shape to represent a pre-existing image in his mind. In other words, a mental image somehow “causes” physical raw material to take on a shape that, in turn, “causes” cognition in another mind.
http://enformationism.info/enformationi ... lcome.html

"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."
___Michaelangelo

http://enformationism.info/enformationi ... _05_06.jpg

[Gnomon]

Enformation cannot exist without being embedded in matter, in my understanding. — Pop

Yes. But, I make a spelling distinction between the causal Energy form (Enformation) and the embodied form (Information). In its raw disembodied form I spell it EnFormAction, to denote the general causal potential of the evolving universe. Technically, ideas (information) in the mind are embodied, even though they can be transferred into the energetic form for artificial transmission between bodies.

EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force (aka : Divine Will) of the axiomatic eternal deity that, for unknown reasons, programmed a Singularity to suddenly burst into our reality from an infinite source of possibility. AKA : The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Information :
When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things [physical objects]. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Yes. It's the mind of the artist that imagines the future interrelations that are currently only potential. — Gnomon
This would be G*D? — Pop

Yes. In the Enformationism thesis, I refer to the First Cause Enformer as the "Programmer", "Creator", or "G*D". But, since that "Artist" necessarily exists outside the artwork, S/he cannot be identified with Nature. Anyway, my G*D is just a hypothesis : a figment of my imagination. So, I sometimes refer to the Enformer as "Spinoza's God", which is usually taken to be the physical universe (Nature) itself. However, Spiny's theory was based on the 17th century assumption the world itself was Eternal. Now that we are told by experts that space-time-matter-energy began almost 14 billion years ago, and seems to be headed for a frosty finale in another 14+ billion years, I must assume that the hypothetical First Cause existed prior to the creative act of causation (Big Bang).

Spinoza's God : In a letter to Henry Oldenburg, Spinoza wrote: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken". For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under infinite attributes, of which we can perceive two: Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism

[Gnomon]

The term "emergence" has a specific technical meaning in this context. If it means what you indicate it does, all physical and chemical interaction between matter and energy represents emergence. The word loses all meaning. — T Clark

You referred to a technical article about "broken symmetry", which may or may not apply to this thread. I didn't login to read the article, so please summarize, in your own words, what "Emergence" means to you? With that information we may be able to communicate with clearer "meanings". I assume the context is Quantum Mechanics, which we have touched-on only briefly, then moved on to other kinds of relationships.

As we are using the term "emergence" here, it does not apply to "all physical and chemical interactions", but only to those physical changes that result in a new kind of thing, with novel properties. Emergence is what identifies a whole system (concrete) as more than the sum of its parts (sand + cement + water). None of the constituent parts has any significant structural rigidity. As you pointed out : "Not every change in characteristics is emergence". Only those that create something new, from something old, But something borrowed or something blue does not count as emergence.

FYI -- here's my reply to the OP :
Generally, Emergent Properties are characteristic of a system-as-a-whole, rather than of individual components of the system. Those collective properties seem to mysteriously emerge from complex interrelationships between parts of the whole. The emergent effects are called "weak" when the ultimate cause is hidden within the complexity of causation. But when the effect can be traced back to a specific cause, it is considered to be "strong". So, Quantum Mechanics is a misnomer, because the links between causes & effects are seldom traceable to an obvious unbroken chain of causation. That's why I say that Quantum Theory has crossed over the line between reductive Science & holistic Philosophy.

[Gnomon]

I've mentioned to you previously that I've been grappling with information, energy and matter - thinking one might be a quality of the other, but not quite being able to fit it together satisfactorily in terms of qualities. I'm satisfied now that the correct term is relationship - the relationship of information and energy is matter. — Pop

Yes, I've noticed that you tend to lean toward Materialism. But my worldview reverses your priority -- matter & energy are transient forms of eternal fundamental Enformation. In my view, matter is merely the container for information. Aristotle's Hylomorphism also placed Form & Matter on the same plane. But Plato's version of "Form" was Logos : a divine principle of order and knowledge. Which is what I call EnFormAction : the power to enform. to fashion, to create. In other words, the eternal potential of Ideality (Enformatiion) must logically be prior to the actual objects of physical reality ( Matter).

Did you notice that in Spinoza's own words, his God (my Enformer) has "attributes that are not present in our world". Hence, his God must exist outside of material reality. He rejected your materialistic God as "mistaken" ("mass of corporeal matter"). Instead, his "eternal universe" is not the one we experience with our physical senses. What he called "Thought" is what I label "Ideality", and his "Extension" is my material Reality. So, my worldview is compatible with Plato & Spinoza, while yours is amenable to Aristotle's. Yet, I don't base my philosophy on ancient authorities, but on modern reasoning.

Spinoza's God : In a letter to Henry Oldenburg, Spinoza wrote: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken". For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under infinite attributes, of which we can perceive two: Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism

Ideality : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

[Gnomon]

The artist never creates exactly what they set out to create. I imagine you, as an architect , would be able to relate to this. There is always the X factor - which is the difference of what one sets out to create, and what one actually creates. Where dose the X come from, or go to? I have no idea, but I feel there is an X factor to all intentional activity. Would you agree? — Pop

Yes. In my conjecture, the Artist deliberately encoded an "X factor" into the program of evolution. If evolution was completely determined by the intention of the artist, there would be no room for randomness in the world. And yet, modern science is reconciled to the essential randomness of physics (chaos) and biology (mutations) that are constantly opening new opportunities for novelty.
Hence, they conclude from that lack of determinism that the world could not have been created by an omnipotent God.

My notion of G*D is not biblical, but I see a good reason for including randomness to provide gaps in the chain of causation, allowing novelty to emerge. How else would big-brain humans, with freewill, evolve from single-cell organisms in a deterministic system? Since our world is both orderly & rational and chaotic & irrational, I conclude that the artist used randomness (like spattering paint) in order to achieve a specific effect. Historically, artists have ranged back & forth between Deterministic (realistic) portrayal and Free (impressionistic). So, I see our world as incorporating both, and evolution itself seems to be an open-ended experiment, where the final product is not fore-known. In my architecture, to my chagrin, I never had total control over the final outcome. But it usually worked-out OK.


Randomness in the Composition of Artwork :
https://tylerxhobbs.com/essays/2014/ran ... of-artwork

THE ROLE OF RATIONALITY IN ARTISTIC PROCESS : An irrational way of making might involve an artist either knowing or not knowing fully what they want to create, but when making it, embracing the elements of chance, failure and experimentation.
https://www.assemblagemagazine.co.uk/ra ... ic-process

Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative deity, who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

[Gnomon]

Information and energy are always embodied in matter. Even in transit from one mind to another they transmit over matter. I see it as a material universe - even a vacuum is not empty. — Pop

True. That's because Materialism is a commonsense view of reality. Information & Energy are invisible and intangible until embodied in some material form. For example Light energy is invisible, but we now know that it causes the "visual purple" chemical in the eye to initiate a chain reaction of physical changes that eventually produce an enformed (meaningful) image in the brain, which we then interpret as a material object out there in the real world. Those phenomena are what we know as reality, because we can only "know" the existence of noumena by rational inference.

Ancient people had no notion of Energy, so they explained its observed effects in terms of Spiritualism. Likewise, an information-based worldview is literally non-sense. It requires the ability to go beyond the senses. The "true" nature of Energy was unknown until Einstein equated it to the Mass --- a mathematical relationship between lightspeed (rate or ratio of change) and the causal energy content of light --- that our brains interpret as Matter. "Mass" literally means "coming together" of causation & form. In his theory of Relativity, Einstein also asserted that all things (physical objects) are relative. The real world is an interconnected network of relationships. Yet, both the connections (links) and the communications are forms of the fundamental universal (spiritual) power of Enformation.

So, the material universe is merely an imaginary image constructed in your brain/mind out of invisible Information. But it's not an illusion, because that pattern of information in your mind is as real as it gets. We cannot even imagine anything immaterial, except by analogy with the physical world. That's why ghosts are described in terms of imaginary substances like Ectoplasm. To understand Enformationism you have to go beyond the range of the physical senses, and use the sixth sense of Reason. Even then, as laymen, we have to accept that our Scientific priests -- who speak the arcane language of Math -- know what they are talking about. In their esoteric math-speak, they tell us that, what commonsense takes to be empty space (vacuum), is full of Potential. But, I have to take it on faith, because I can't see Probability (the future).


Spiritualism, in philosophy, a characteristic of any system of thought that affirms the existence of immaterial reality imperceptible to the senses.

Is everything made up of matter? :
https://www.quora.com/Is-everything-mad ... srid=ozk3M

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Reality is not what you see : In his doctrine of Transcendental Idealism, 18th century philosopher, Immanuel Kant argued that our perception of reality is limited to constructs created in our own minds to represent the invisible and intangible ultimate reality that he mysteriously labeled “ding an sich” [things-in-essence, as opposed to things-as-we-know-them]. In other words, what we think we see, is not absolute reality but our own ideas about reality.
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

[Gnomon]

It discusses how different levels in the hierarchy of science relate to each other. For example, all of biology is consistent with chemistry and physics. That's the reductionist view and is non-controversial. But that doesn't mean you can generate the behavior of biological organisms and the laws of biology from the behavior of non-living matter or the laws of chemistry and physics. Biology emerges out of chemistry and physics. — T Clark

That stuff is way over my head. So, I'm still waiting for your dumbed-down philosophical summary of whatever that scientific jargon has to do with the topic of this thread : "What is the relationship, if any, between emergent properties and quantum mechanics?" Here's a clue : it's not questioning whether "biology emerges out of chemistry and physics".