Single Idea 2469

[catalogued under 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties]

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.

Clarification

Hence if you assemble enough brain, you get consciousness

Gist of Idea

The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains)

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2)

Book Reference

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'In Critical Condition' [MIT 2000], p.21


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.