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Full Idea
Macroproperties can, and in general do, have their own causal powers, powers that go beyond the causal powers of their microconstituents.
Clarification
E.g. frozen water molecules being slippery
Gist of Idea
Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents
Source
Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §3 p.085)
Book Ref
Kim,Jaegwon: 'Mind in the Physical World' [MIT 2000], p.85
A Reaction
I don't see why the macro-powers 'go beyond' the sum of the micro-powers. Admittedly one molecule can't be slippery, but slipperiness can be totally reduced to molecule behaviour.
| 3471 | Some properties depend on components, others on their relations [Searle] |
| 3472 | Fully 'emergent' properties contradict our whole theory of causation [Searle] |
| 2320 | Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents [Kim] |
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| 3432 | Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property? [Kim] |
| 3434 | Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things [Kim] |
| 2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
| 4083 | If mental properties are emergent they add a new type of causation, and physics is not complete [Crane] |
| 4082 | The distinction between 'resultant' properties (weight) and 'emergent' properties is a bit vague [Crane] |
| 4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
| 4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
| 18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
| 14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
| 14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |