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2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Damn near everything we know about the world (e.g. a mountain) suggests that unimaginably complicated to-ings and fro-ings of bits and pieces at the extreme microlevel manage somehow to converge on stable macrolevel properties. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: This is clearly true, and is a vital part of the physicalist picture of the mind. Personally I prefer the word 'processes' to 'properties', since no one seems to really know what a property is. A process is an abstraction from events. |