Emergence and Some of Its Implications
G. L. Farre
The implications of the stratification of interactions in energy levels discovered in the last few decades, have not been fully grasped outside of the physics community, despite the fact that they have to do with the fundamental theory of matter. Yet, the existence of energy gap of varying widths between strata is of supreme significance because of the hierarchical complexity of natural systems. This paper is designed around two objectives: to examine the processes that lead to the hierarchisation of natural systems, and to indicate the relation some prominent contemporary problems bear to them. A brief coda will examine the possibility of a universal theory of evolution.
The existence of natural hierarchies bespeaks of processes of energy transformation that are unlike the interactions between systems confined within the same stratum, which leave observable traces. Two of these energy gaps, which play a particularly significant role in the emergence of complex systems, are referred to in the technical literature as Cuts. The Cartesian Cut, which separates mind from its quantal substrate, is constitutive of observations, while the Heisenberg Cut separates a natural system's objectual characteristics from its internal dynamical r
Ｈime. These characteristics, which are endogeneous to the system, define the kinds of interactions it can enter into in its surround, while its internal rＨime is what enables it to be thus interactive.
A number of interesting problems have their roots in the manner these two types of processes of energy transformations are synchronised in hierarchisation. The chief one is that of representing, in a scientifically respectable way, the processes which bridge the gaps between strata and are primarily responsible for the emergence of natural systems, hence for their hierarchisation. A representation is scientifically respectable in this sense if it is mathematically perspicuous, i.e. it serves the function of the fundamental theory which underlies such processes, as well as satisfies stringent criteria in the observation of their effects, given that these processes leave no observable interticial traces.
One problem has to do with the manner in which the Cartesian Cut is bridged. It is the subject of the recently developed theory of the Semantic Filter [Farre; Schempp]. A related problem has to do with the manner in which the Heisenberg Cut is spanned: it is the subject of recent studies by a group of distinguished scholars [Atmanspacher; Primas; Schempp].
The emergence of mind in the context of the hierarchisation of matter presents a different problem. It is an unusually difficult one for the reason that in this case, neither the Cartesian Cut nor the Heisenberg Cut are operative, all observations being internal to a sytem, in this case the system {observer, observed}, which is not realised in the case of the mind looking upon itself. Much the same can be said, mutatis mutandis, of the more complex social systems of which the observer is an integral part.
In conclusion, considering that all natural systems are material, that all material interactions are effected by quantal means, and that new mathematical strategies have recently been devised that offer the promise of bringing to light the synergetic architecture that underlies the hierarchisation of natural systems, the possibility of a truly scientific universal theory of evolution can no longer be ignored. There remain, however, severe limitations to its articulation in terms of thedynamical structures internal to complex systems, for both observational and theoretical reasons.