Emergence in Physics

Wayne, Andrew; Arciszewski, Michal

doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00239.x

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…However, phenotypes often cannot be explained simply as the sum of the properties of the micro-components. Emergent phenomena [1] are not unique to biology; physical [2] , [3] , [4] , chemical [5] , and social [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] systems all have to contend with this challenge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macro-level Modeling of the Response of C. elegans Reproduction to Chronic Heat Stress

et al. 2012

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A major goal of systems biology is to understand how organism-level behavior arises from a myriad of molecular interactions. Often this involves complex sets of rules describing interactions among a large number of components. As an alternative, we have developed a simple, macro-level model to describe how chronic temperature stress affects reproduction in C. elegans. Our approach uses fundamental engineering principles, together with a limited set of experimentally derived facts, and provides quantitatively accurate predictions of performance under a range of physiologically relevant conditions. We generated detailed time-resolved experimental data to evaluate the ability of our model to describe the dynamics of C. elegans reproduction. We find considerable heterogeneity in responses of individual animals to heat stress, which can be understood as modulation of a few processes and may represent a strategy for coping with the ever-changing environment. Our experimental results and model provide quantitative insight into the breakdown of a robust biological system under stress and suggest, surprisingly, that the behavior of complex biological systems may be determined by a small number of key components.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macro-level Modeling of the Response of C. elegans Reproduction to Chronic Heat Stress

et al. 2012

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“…Properties like these exist outside the realm of natural science, too: no single price hike can constitute inflation, and no single hand can count as performing a clap. The notion of emergence is widely discussed in the philosophy of science and particularly the philosophy of physics [2][3][4] and the application of emergence to chemistry has on occasion been explored, [5][6][7][8][9] but it is rarely mentioned explicitly in studies reporting the results of chemical research. By discussing four case studies, we here hope to show how keeping emergence in mind when planning and conduct-ing chemical experiments can help us identify and analyze challenges of current research.…”

Section: The Concept Of Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Emergent Properties in Chemistry ‐ Relating Molecular Properties to Bulk Behavior

Sieroka,

Lossau,

Neudecker

2024

Chemistry A European J

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Certain properties of an object only emerge when a sufficient number of those objects are present in a definite arrangement. For example, one or two water molecules cannot said to be in a liquid state, but a drop of water can be. This concept of emergence has been studied extensively, but only occasionally discussed explicitly in the context of chemistry. In this paper, we aim to show the fruitfulness of the concept of emergence for chemical inquiry by considering four case studies of emergent chemical properties, i. e., the liquidity and freezing of water, structural properties of crystals, thermodynamical phase transitions and quantum mechanical phenomena. We show that some of these properties emerge gradually, some at discrete points, and some should be taken to emerge only when the number of constituents tends to infinity. We argue that studying the way in which chemical properties emerge presents a useful avenue for research that promises greater insight into the nature of those properties.

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“…This concept has attracted philosophers and scientists alike. There is a large body of philosophical literature on emergence (Humphreys, 2016b;Wilson, 2021), and there are scientists within various disciplines such as biology (Rothschild, 2006;Van Regenmortel, 2004), computer science (Holland, 1998;Mitchell, 2009), physics (Anderson, 1972;Wayne & Arciszewski, 2009) and linguistics (Deacon, 2005;MacWhinney, 2002) who have promoted using the concept in their fields. Within the sciences, the employment of the concept is usually sporadic rather than systematic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A philosophical analysis of the emergence of language

Tabatabaei Ghomi,

Benítez‐Burraco

2023

Theoria

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There is a research programme in linguistics that is founded on describing language as an emergent phenomenon. This paper clarifies how the core concept of emergence is deployed in this emergentist programme. We show that if one adopts the weak understandings of the concept of language emergence, the emergentist programme is not fundamentally different from the other non‐emergentist research programmes in linguistics. On the other hand, if one adopts the stronger understandings of emergence then the programme would have a unique character, but at the cost of some corollaries (philosophical, but not only) which the emergentist linguists would seemingly want to avoid. We show that if the emergentists accept those corollaries, the resulting hypothetical emergentist programme would be totally different from the emergentist programme in its present shape. We conclude that the emergentist programme, as it stands, should be either abandoned or reshaped in both theory and methodology.

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Emergence in Physics

Cited by 6 publications

References 34 publications

Macro-level Modeling of the Response of C. elegans Reproduction to Chronic Heat Stress

Macro-level Modeling of the Response of C. elegans Reproduction to Chronic Heat Stress

Emergent Properties in Chemistry ‐ Relating Molecular Properties to Bulk Behavior

A philosophical analysis of the emergence of language

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