[MD] British Emergentism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Platt,


> Emergentism, whether British or Hungarian, suffers from a fatal flaw. It
> is entirely bereft of scientific explanation because it fails to identify
> deterministic causes or "mechanisms" for the phenomenon in question.
> To say that this or that property "emerges" is to say nothing more than
> from A comes B. It is a description, not an explanation. Or, if posited as
> an explanation it amounts to "Oops."

I agree that "emergence" does not explain evolution with mechanisms or
deterministic causes, but neither does the MOQ. The idea of emergence
is basically anti-reductionism. It says, stop insisting that a
deterministic mechanism on a lower level must explain everything worth
knowing on a higher level. It says advances in physics will never make
biological science obsolete. The MOQ agrees.

Best,
Steve