Chapter 1: The New Biology
19 - Emergence
Through the early part of the twentieth century, increased attention was paid to context and large patterns. Then in the thirties, scientists began exploring how those patterns work. One outcome was “general systems theory.” At about this time, philosopher C. D. Broad introduced the term “emergent properties.” Lotka, too, had been wondering if there might be something interesting in the way that new and higher levels of complexity keep emerging in natural systems. Biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and his colleagues formalized those ideas, proposing not only that there are emergent layers of complexity in nature, but also that different qualities arise with each new layer. Science writer Fritjof Capra describes them:
At each level of complexity the observed phenomena exhibit properties that do not exist at the lower level. For example, the concept of temperature, which is central to thermodynamics, is meaningless at the level of individual atoms, where the laws of quantum theory operate. Similarly, the taste of sugar is not present in the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms that constitute its components…According to the systems view, the essential properties of an organism or living system are properties of the whole, which none of the parts have. They arise from the interactions and relationships among the parts. These properties are destroyed when the system is dissected.
By this time the growing accent on whole systems had already shown the limits of cause-and-effect logic. Systems theory took the insurrection further, by breaking with reductionism—the belief that natural systems can be fully understood by simply looking at the parts.
But the matter was far from settled. The mechanical view of nature still had powerful advocates and was preparing another assault.
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