Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the elements, there also exist emergent properties which are not
predictable. However, they cannot arise except from a particular
material base corresponding to a specific configuration of and rela-
tionship between the elements. The concept of emergence refers
both to what necessarily arises from a specific material base and to
the non-predictability of what arises. It is important to note that
this concept is deterministic. Each time the same base is produced
the same emergence phenomenon is reproduced. As a first example
let us look at the relationship between the properties of molecules
and those of the atoms that make them up.
“
When carbon having certain properties combines with sulphur
having other properties there is formed, not a mere mixture but a
new compound, some of the properties of which are quite different
from those of either component. Now the weight of the compound
is an additive resultant, the sum of the weights of the components;
and this could be predicted before any molecule of carbon-bisulphide
had been formed. One could say in advance that if carbon and sul-
phur shall be found to combine in any ascertainable proportions
there will be such and such weight as resultant. But sundry other
properties are constitutive emergents, which (it is claimed) could
not be foretold in advance of any instance of such combination. Of
course when one has learnt what emerges in this particular
instance one may predict what will emerge in that instance under
similar circumstances. One has learnt something of the natural
plan of emergent evolution
” (EE p. 3).
This is a central idea of holism that is found among all its
adherents:
“
A mere mechanical aggregate is nothing new, and is no more than
the sum of the mixed ingredients, while the chemical compound is
new in the sense that out of the constituent materials another qual-
itatively different substance has been made. A new structure has been
formed in the chemical compound. In the same way a new structure
and substance is made in the atom out of the qualitatively different
