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Emergence and Strange Attractors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

David V. Newman
David V. Newman*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Texas
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, 320 Moore Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49009.
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Abstract

Recent work in the Philosophy of Mind has suggested that alternatives to reduction are required in order to explain the relationship between psychology and biology or physics. Emergence has been proposed as one such alternative. In this paper, I propose a precise definition of emergence, and I argue that chaotic systems provide concrete examples of properties that meet this definition. In particular, I suggest that being in the basin of attraction of a strange attractor is an emergent property of any chaotic nonlinear dynamical system. This shows that non-reductive accounts of inter-theoretic relations are necessary, and that non-reductive accounts of the mental are possible. Moreover, this work provides a foundation for future work investigating the nature of explanation, prediction, and scientific understanding of non-reductive phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 245 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The material in this paper is mostly taken from Chapters 3 and 4 of my dissertation, Chaos and Consciousness. My thanks to Rob Koons, Nick Asher, Robert Causey, Cory Juhl, Jim Garson, Jeff Foss, Pat Manfredi, and Johanna Seibt for discussion of the issues involved here and for comments on my paper “Chaos and Emergence” given at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Conference, December 1993. That paper involved my earlier thoughts on some of these issues. I also thank an anonymous reviewer for Philosophy of Science.

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