Divine Action and Emergence

An Alternative to Panentheism

Mariusz Tabaczek

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780268108762
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Philosophische Metaphysik

Divine Action and Emergence puts the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in conversation with current philosophy and theology.

As a middle path between classical theism and pantheism, the panentheistic turn in the twentieth century has been described as a "quiet revolution." Today, in fact, many theologians hold that the world is "in" God (who, at the same time, is more than the world). Panentheism has been especially influential in the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences. Many have seen panentheism as compatible with emergentism, and thus have brought the two together in developing models of divine action that do not abrogate the regularities of processes of the natural world. In Divine Action and Emergence, Mariusz Tabaczek argues that, as inspiring and intriguing as emergentist panentheism is, it requires deeper examination. He begins by looking at the wonder of emergence (which calls into question the overly reductionist attitude in natural science) and by reflecting philosophically on emergence theory in light of classical and new Aristotelianism. Moving in a theological direction, Tabaczek then offers a critical evaluation of emergentist panentheism and a constructive proposal for how to reinterpret the idea of divine action as inspired by the theory of emergence with reference to the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of God's action in the universe.

Through a unique interdisciplinary approach that puts theology and the natural sciences into a dialogue through philosophy, Divine Action and Emergence offers a comprehensive evaluation of panentheism. It then puts forward an original reinterpretation of emergence theory, thus setting forth a constructive proposal for reinterpreting the concept of divine action that is currently espoused by emergence theory. It will appeal to scholars of theology and philosophy, those who work in the area of theology and science, those interested in emergence theory or panentheism, and finally those who are interested in the dialogue between the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition and contemporary philosophy and theology.

PART 1

The Phenomenon of Emergence

The discussion of emergence has grown out of the successes and the failures of the scientific quest for reduction. Emergence theories presuppose that the once-popular project of complete explanatory reduction—that is, explaining all phenomena in the natural world in terms of the objects and laws of physics—is finally impossible.

—Philip Clayton, Conceptual Foundations of Emergence Theory

The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops. Emergence results in the creation of novelty, and this novelty is often qualitatively different from the phenomenon out of which it emerged.

—Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections

Philosophical reflection on the current status of natural science reveals its rather paradoxical character and nature. On the one hand, for more than three centuries, it has been driven by the reductionist agenda, developed and pursued by many practicing scientists and theorists of the scientific endeavor. The rapid development of biochemistry, molecular biology, and neuroscience in the twentieth century led many of them to believe that all phenomena investigated in the social sciences and psychology could be reduced to those studied in neuroscience, biology, and biochemistry, which could be, in turn, further reduced to chemistry, and eventually to physics. Questioning the reality of qualities, the advocates of the reductionist attitude in science explain them as a result of certain quantitative arrangements in matter, which can be expressed in mathematical language. Thus, the difference between red and green is for them just a matter of the difference of light wavelength, the melody of a song a variation of sound waves, while flavor, scent, hardness, and texture are simply functions of the constitution of elementary building blocks entering into the basic physical and chemical structures of things.

On the other hand—although it proved extremely successful for both describing and explaining an immense variety of natural phenomena, as well as for translating this knowledge into many practical and technological solutions and inventions—the reductively oriented science does not seem to provide an ultimate and an exhaustive explanation of the nature of material entities. Hence, its paradigm and quite radical aspirations have recently been objected to and criticized by a growing number of scientists and philosophers of science who claim it necessary to accept the ontological irreducibility of numerous phenomena, properties, and processes that characterize both inanimate and animate nature.

This irreducibility remains the object of study in the new, systems approach to biology, which originates in the growing availability of high computational power, developments in mathematical and algorithmic techniques, and the introduction of mass data production technologies (e.g., high-throughput data collecting). Applied to biological research, these technologically mediated methodological innovations questioned the reductionist and gene-centric strategies of investigating isolated molecular components or pathways. The “quantitative turn” of systems biology enabled supplementing such in vitro analysis and measurement of molecular properties and interactions with the in vivo study of their actual operation in living organisms.¹

This new, nonreductionist approach in biology shows both that predictively accurate models for theoretical and practical purposes require a holistic approach and that qualitative properties of complex biological systems are not simply functions of quantitative aggregation of their physically simpler constituents. What is more, when analyzed from the philosophical point of view, the new paradigm in molecular biology opens the way to the rediscovery and further development of the theory of EM as a necessary background and grounding for biological theories.

The theory of EM is the main subject of my study presented in this part of the project. Starting by describing a number of emergent phenomena, the first chapter analyzes the origins of philosophical emergentism and presents the main objectives of its classical account. Among the main versions of ontological EM, I will especially attend to the one based on the concept of DC, that is, new, primitive, and top-down-oriented causal power, which is regarded by many as a decisive and the most characteristic trait of emergent systems. After discussing major shortcomings of the classical account of EM and showing the need and opening a way to its redefinition in terms of a more robust theory of causation, the latter part of chapter 1 will analyze the project developed by Terrence Deacon, in which he applies categories of causation related to those of Aristotle in his original dynamical depth model of EM.

The second chapter begins by introducing the legacy of Aristotle’s classical theory of causation against the background of other views popular in his day. I then present and evaluate the neo-Aristotelian aspects of dispositional metaphysics and the corresponding theory of causation (inspired by the insufficiency of the six main views of causation offered in analytic philosophy). The latter part of chapter 2 proposes a reinterpretation of both the classical DC-based and Deacon’s dynamical depth versions of ontological EM in terms of classical and new Aristotelianism.

CHAPTER 1

Science and Metaphysics
of Emergence

Aristotle opens his study of metaphysics acknowledging that “it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.”¹ If so, then we should begin our complex metaphysical investigation of emergentism with a deep breath filled with wonder and astonishment about the beauty and unique features of emergent phenomena.

1. THE WONDER OF EMERGENCE

Watching the surface of a lake or a river on a warm summer day, one can easily notice the so-called water striders or water skippers, that is, insects belonging to one of more than 1,700 species of Gerrids (Gerridae), known for their ability to walk on water. This unique skill of Gerrids is possible not only due to their light body weight but also because of the relatively high surface tension of water. The latter is regarded as an emergent phenomenon, that is, a phenomenon which shows, is realized, or arises out of some more fundamental phenomena and yet is novel and irreducible with respect to them. Thus, in the case of water surface tension, even if we can determine that this phenomenon is related to the characteristic V-shape of H₂O molecules, with an approximately 106° angle between the two O-H chemical bonds (which departs from the quantum equation for a system built of eighteen protons and electrons and—typically—eight neutrons), the phenomenon in question occurs only in large conglomerates of water molecules and is irreducible to singular H₂O molecules. See figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1. First-order emergent phenomenon: water surface tension

(A) Water strider of the genus Gerris walking on water. (B) The structure of water. The web of hydrogen bonds in a conglomerate of H₂O molecules is responsible for their mutual attraction. This attraction is higher (due to cohesion) than the attraction of H₂O to the molecules in the air (due to adhesion). The net outcome (C) is an inward force at the surface that causes the body of water to behave as if it was covered with a stretched elastic membrane. The relatively high attraction of water molecules effects a surface tension (72.8 millinewtons per meter at 20°C) higher than that of most other liquids.

Sources: (A) Webrunner, “Gerris,” Wikipedia, May 25, 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerris_by_webrunner.webp; (B) Qwerter, “3D Model Hydrogen Bonds in Water,” Wikipedia, April 16, 2011, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3D_model_hydrogen_bonds_in_water.svg; (C) User:Booyabazooka, “WassermoleküleInTröpfchen,” Wikipedia, November 2008, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wassermolek%C3%BCleInTr%C3%B6pfchen.svg.

Surface tension is just one example among a number of physical phenomena which result from basic characteristics and patterns of behavior typical of molecules or other building blocks of entities and substances when taken in bulks (conglomerates). These phenomena are classified as first-order emergent and include, among others, friction, viscosity, elasticity, tensile strength, temperature, and—according to a number of particle physicists—mass, space, and time (which are thought to be arising from Higgs bosons or strings).

Another set of examples of naturally occurring phenomena which both fascinate and puzzle human observers are (a) natural geometric patterns that develop through the interactions of shapes played out sequentially over time and (b) self-organizing (dissipative) systems. The former group includes polygonal and circular ground patterns, alternating stripes of stones and vegetation, water erosion formations, and so on. Among the latter we find examples of water crystals forming on glass, formation of snowflakes, eddies forming in bodies of water, or convection cells (e.g., Bénard cells forming in heated liquids). These are all examples of the second-order emergent phenomena occurring in nature. See figure 1.2.

Finally, scientists distinguish third-order emergent phenomena as resulting from interactions sensitive to shape and time that show heritable and teleological features. As examples we can list the origin and organization of life (from subatomic level to the entire biosphere) and various cases of swarm behavior (ant and bee colonies, migrating insects, schooling fish, flocking birds, etc.). See figure 1.3.

However, the science of EM does not stop on this standard three-order classification of emergent phenomena. Going back to the bottom level of complexity, the physics of quantum mechanics seems to suggest that quantum entanglement and our perception of a deterministic reality—in which objects have definite qualitative features, positions, momenta, and so forth—are both emergent phenomena, grounded in the true state of matter described by a wave function, which does not allow us to assign to elementary particles definite positions or momenta. A similar situation obtains with the laws of physics as we know them today. It is believed that they all emerged from one fundamental law, which is yet to be found by science. Moving up on the scale of complexity, one may argue that the laws of chemistry emerged from those of physics and gave the origin to the laws of biology (including evolution). The laws of biology provided—in turn—a necessary foundation for the EM of the laws related to human mind, consciousness, and rationality—the object of study in psychology and social sciences.

Acceptance of this argument opens a way to consider as emergent a number of other familiar phenomena, such as spontaneous organizational tendencies characterizing groups of people, economic trends and the stock market, architectural and traffic patterns of modern cities, the World Wide Web, patterns of Internet traffic (including patterns in the social media), and so on.² These are all examples of decentralized complex occurrences exhibiting higher-order irreducible emergent properties. What characterizes these systems, according to Robert Laughlin, is broken symmetry, that is, the fact that the symmetry present on the lower level of complexity is not present on the higher level, due to phase transitions. This does not make the lower-order interactions irrelevant, but simply tells us that their effects, observable in higher-order phenomena, have been renormalized. This assertion can be regarded as a more articulate and precise expression of the popular claim saying that EM simply tells us that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.³

Figure 1.2. Second-order emergent phenomena

(A) polygons (so-called ice wedges in permafrost areas of arctic tundra); (B) circles (Svalbard Archipelago in Norway); (C) stripes of stones and vegetation (Glacier National Park in Montana); (D) water erosion steps (Red Rock Canyon in Oklahoma); (E) stone pattern (carved by the Goght River at Garni Gorge in Armenia); (F) water crystals forming on glass; (G) complex symmetrical and fractal patterns in snowflakes; (H) two currents (the Oyashio and Kuroshio currents) collide, creating eddies, and phytoplankton concentrates along the boundaries of these eddies, tracing out the motions of the water; (I) Bénard cells in a heated liquid.

Sources: (A) Dennis Cowals, “Alaska Patterned Ground 1973,” Wikipedia, June 28, 2011, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alaska_patterned_ground_1973.webp; (B) Hannes Grobe, “Permafrost Stone-Rings,” Wikipedia, August 31, 2007, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Permafrost_stone-rings_hg.webp; (C) Walkswithgoats, “Patterned Ground in Glacier Park,” Wikipedia, August 9, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patterned_ground_in_Glacier_Park._.webp; (D) Gina Dittmer, “Red Rock Erosion Steps,” PublicDomainPictures.net, n.d., http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=158104&picture=red-rock-erosion-steps; (E) “Garni Gorge,” Wikipedia, May 19, 2007, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Garni_Gorge3.webp; (F) Rusfuture, “Water Crystals on Mercury 20Feb2010,” Wikipedia, February 20, 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_Crystals_on_Mercury_20Feb2010_CU1.webp; (G) Wilson Bentley, “SnowflakesWilsonBentley,” December 9, 2010 [photos were taken in 1902 in Jericho, VT], Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SnowflakesWilsonBentley.webp; (H) Norman Kuring, “Spring Bloom Colors the Pacific near Hokkaido,” Wikipedia, May 21, 2009, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spring_Bloom_Colors_the_Pacific_Near_Hokkaido.webp; (I) WikiRigaou, “Bénard Cells Convection,” Wikipedia, 2005, https://en.wikipedia.org/wik...