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That's an odd statement. Is there precedent for attributing emergent phenomenon to the pieces? Because that is what seems to be happening here. To my eyes, if a
by sliverstorm 13y ago
That's an odd statement. Is there precedent for attributing emergent phenomenon to the pieces? Because that is what seems to be happening here. To my eyes, if a system is conscious, that does not mean the pieces that make the system are conscious. Consciousness is an emergent property of the system.
Snowflakes are pretty. The water molecules in the snowflake do not inherent this; they are not themselves pretty as a result of being in the pretty snowflake. (Although you could consider them beautiful for other reasons. From a life-sciences and/or chemistry point of view, water is pretty beautiful)
But then again, I'm an engineer with a passing interest in chemistry, not a quantum physicist, so of course I see everything as systems. To me nothing they talk about makes sense anyway.
- tlb 13y agoStates of matter are emergent. A single atom cannot be said to be a gas, liquid or solid, only a sufficiently large group of them.
- jfoutz 13y agoA single unconnected atom would be a gas, right?
- araes 13y agoNo, a single, unconnected atom would be just that. The ideas of solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose Einstein Condensate, ect... are defined by the interactions of atoms in varying energy states and degrees of freedom.
- sliverstorm 13y agoStill, a snowflake is not a state of matter. You cannot say "Oh if we increase the pressure it will enter phase X and thus the snowflake state of matter". It is built upon a state of matter (crystaline solid), no?
- saraid216 13y agoA snowflake is second-tier emergence (this is a made-up term). Hydrogen and oxygen atoms do not have states of matter. Water molecules, as collections of H and O atoms in specific arrangements, have states of matter. Snowflakes are collections of water molecules in specific arrangements and in specific states of matter. A snowman. A family of snowmen. The general practice of creating snowmen. And so on and so on.
- sliverstorm 13y agoRight, so the ice is not a snowflake, but the snowflake is made of ice. Similarly, organic chemicals are not a consciousness, but a consciousness emerges (we think) in a lump of organic chemicals. Do you disagree? P.S. A snowman isn't exactly an emergent property. Now, an avalanche system might be...
- simonh 13y agoI agree that describing the actual matter itself as conscious, rather than the object it forms, is a stretch too far. When I die the matter I'm made of will still be exactly the same stuff, but the object it forms will no longer be a human being.