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DBH on Materialist Poofery

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From time to time I write in these pages concerning the concept of “materialist poofery” otherwise known as “emergentism.”  Today I noticed an article by DBH on the subject:

[An] emergent reality is [according to sociologist Christian Smith] one that, though remaining ever dependent upon the native properties of the elements composing it, nevertheless possesses new characteristics that are wholly “irreducible” to those properties.  But this is certainly false. At least, as a claim made solely about physical processes, organisms, and structures—in purely material terms—it cannot possibly be true. If nothing else, it is a claim strictly precluded by most modern scientific prejudice. From a genuinely “physicalist” perspective, there are no such things as emergent properties in this sense, discontinuous from the properties of the prior causes from which they arise; anything, in principle, must be reducible, by a series of “geometrical” steps, to the physical attributes of its ingredients . . .

The heroic absurdism that, in differing registers, constitutes the blazingly incandescent core of the thought of Daniel Dennett, Alex Rosenberg, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and other impeccable materialists of the same general kind follows from the recognition”not very philosophically sophisticated as a rule, but astute nonethelessthat consciousness can exist within the world of nature only if matter is susceptible of formation by a higher causality, one traditionally called “soul.” And the soul, as such a formal cause, is precisely that which cannot simply “emerge.”

Comments
Smith's use of computers as an example of emergence is especially interesting, since computers were very clearly designed to have the "emergent" properties they possess. If design is the same thing as emergence, then I will need to rethink my position on whether life can emerge from non-life.Phinehas
November 16, 2015
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Nice Article Mr Arrington. Evolutionists rely on this kind of language. "Evolutionists Explain Design Using Unscientific "Magic Words" The term "magic words" is used here as a concise idiom that describes the best words evolutionists use to explain "apparent" design. Evolutionists confidently insist that a complex biological feature simply "appeared," "emerged," "arose," "gave rise to," "burst onto the scene," "evolved itself," "derived," "was on the way to becoming," "radiated into," "modified itself," "became a miracle of evolution," "was making the transition to," "manufactured itself," "evolution's way of dealing with," "derived emergent properties," or "was lucky." http://www.icr.org/article/unmasking-evolutions-magic-words/Jack Jones
November 16, 2015
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