Emergence, Materialism, and Worldviews

VoegelinView, 2018

[This is a paper I presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco on a panel about Leidhold's book. It was subsequently published online in VoegelinView at https://voegelinview.com/toward-theology-emergence-reflections-wolfgang-leidholds-genealogy-experience/] I think Wolgang Leidhold's The Genealogy of Experience is an extremely important book, with major implications for the ways we can think about a variety of matters. Leidhold says on the first page that his main thesis is a " paradigm shift, " treating the structure of human experience as something that " is not a universal constant, but changes over time, " and I think myself that what makes this book especially important is that it could bring with it a broader paradigm shift in a variety of fields of thought. Since I have a special interest in the history of religious thought, I intend to discuss what I think are some of the implications of Leidhold's book for theology and its relation to ideas of both religious and political authority. But before proceeding to that, I would like to mention some of the themes of Leidhold's book that point toward these kinds of reflection. The over all theme of the book is the evolution of experience, which it traces through a sequence of what Leidhold calls " turns, " from prehistoric times to the present. This evolution involves a long process in which higher levels of consciousness, intentionality, and capacities for self-reflection and decision gradually emerge. The book goes into detail about the evolution of the physiological basis for the possibilities of experience and of consciousness as focused awareness. An important implication of this, I think, is that the rise of consciousness within a universe of what is commonly thought of as inert matter can be best understood as the unfolding over time of a substratum of proto-awareness that is

2017

Theology and Science

In this paper, I argue for the usefulness of pragmatism as a framework within which to develop the theological application of emergentist theory. I consider some philosophical issues relevant to the recent revival of interest, across various disciplines, in the concept of emergence and clarify some of the conceptual issues at stake in the attempts to formulate the philosophical position of emergentism and to apply it theologically. After highlighting some major problems arising from the main existing ways of formulating emergentism, I build on the work of Sami Pihlström, outlining a less problematic, alternative proposal. I attempt to show that the philosophical problems can be circumvented by an appeal to the pragmatist tradition, which is a useful philosophical framework within which to develop an emergentist theory that is fit for theological application.

Faith and Thought, 2015

This article is an expanded version of a lecture I gave at an international science and faith conference in Hamilton, Ontario in 2014 as a member of the American Scientific Affiliation. The article synthesizes and distills the key philosophical and scientific contributions to the theory of "emergentism" or "emergence."

Biology & Philosophy, 2006

Ultimately we will only understand biological agency when we have developed a theory of the organization of biological processes, and science is still a long way from attaining that goal. It may be possible nonetheless to develop a list of necessary conditions for the emergence of minimal biological agency. The authors offer a model of molecular autonomous agents which meets the five minimal physical conditions that are necessary (and, we believe, conjointly sufficient) for applying agential language in biology: autocatalytic reproduction; work cycles; boundaries for reproducing individuals; self-propagating work and constraint construction; and choice and action that have evolved to respond to food or poison. When combined with the arguments from preadaptation and multiple realizability, the existence of these agents is sufficient to establish ontological emergence as against what one might call Weinbergian reductionism. Minimal biological agents are emphatically not conscious agents, and accepting their existence does not commit one to any robust theory of human agency. Nor is there anything mystical, dualistic, or non-empirical about the emergence of agency in the biosphere. Hence the emergence of molecular autonomous agents, and indeed ontological emergence in general, is not a negation of or limitation on careful biological study but simply one of its implications.

Suri: Journal of the Philosophical Association of the Philippines, 2019

Among worldviews, in addition to the options of materialist atheism, pantheism and personal theism, there exists a fourth, "local emergentism". It holds that there are no gods, nor does the universe overall have divine aspects or any purpose. But locally, in our region of space and time, the properties of matter have given rise to entities which are completely different from matter in kind and to a degree god-like: consciousnesses with rational powers and intrinsic worth. The emergentist option is compared with the standard alternatives and the arguments for and against it are laid out. It is argued that, among options in the philosophy of religion, it involves the minimal reworking of the manifest image of common sense. Hence it deserves a place at the table in arguments as to the overall nature of the universe.

This paper is an analysis and critique of emergent theologies, focusing on areas of Christology and pneumatology. An increasing number of Christian theologians are integrating (strong) emergence theory into their work. I argue that, despite the range of theological commitments and methodologically approaches represented by these scholars, each faces similar problematic tendencies when their Christian doctrines are combined with (strong) emergence theory. It is concluded that the basic logic of emergence theory, whereby matter is seen to precede mind, makes it difficult for emergent theologies to offer an account of salvation, avoid significant issues regarding God’s involvement with evil, and maintain divine transcendence. It is concluded, therefore, that Christian theology should look elsewhere for a complimentary metaphysical framework with which to bridge scientific and theological discourse. This paper is forthcoming in Zygon: Journal of Theology and Science, for a better and edited version please see this journal - expected in the Sept 2016 issue.

Scottish Journal of Theology, 2009

We are interested in determining the conditions under which a spatially-extended finite system can support potentially unbounded emergence. This would afford emergentism the status of a universal phenomenon. It will be shown that this is possible if an infinite hierarchy of laws governing the behaviour of such a system is admitted. We postulate this as a necessary condition for open or unbounded emergence in spatially extended finite systems. The ways in which we 'cut' this ontological hierarchy determine what are to count as the global 'physics' and local 'atoms' in our models of nature. Hence, we argue for an epistemology which is relativistic and motivated by intentional, i.e. conscious, concerns.