A Rational Cosmology: Emergent Properties as an Explanation for Life, Consciousness, and Volition

How, one might ask, is it possible to have constituents which are inert matter add up to a system that is not, i.e., a system that is alive? Would that not imply that the whole needs to be greater than the sum of its parts, or any other sort of creation ex nihilo?

But this is not at all the case. One of the parts that constitutes the whole in a living system is the sum of the spatial relationships among the various cells, tissues, and organs of the body.

By themselves, the cells, tissues, and organs are indeed inert in most cases, as they do not exhibit the necessary spatial and motional relationships to other cells, tissues, and organs. When they do exhibit such relationships, however, another factor has been added into the equation, which makes the sum of its parts precisely equal to the sum of its parts, i.e., a living system.

Furthermore, might it not be possible to have a system that is not only capable of reacting to external stimuli in a self-perpetuating manner, but also acting in a certain manner at a certain time when it is physically possible for another course of action to happen at that time?

That is, might it be possible for the system to deliberately behave in a certain manner, and to know that it is deliberately behaving in this manner, and that it is thus behaving not because of any external compulsion, but because of the system's own self-induced workings?

Here, we have described a system that has both consciousness and volition -- a system that is aware of its own existence and environment, and capable of choosing what to do with it. This system is a far cry from the discrete particles of inert matter that have no volition of their own, even though not a single particle within the system itself has any more volition than it would have had outside the system.

Rather, what possesses volition is the sum of the particles, or the system itself. Qualities a system possesses that its constituents, in severance from one another, would not, are called emergent properties in biology, and are at the core of the biological hierarchy of existence -- without emergent properties, tissues could not be more complicated than cells, organs could not be more complicated than tissues, and organisms could not be more complicated than organs. Since we know the contrary to be true, we know that emergent properties must exist.

The highest emergent properties possible are life, consciousness, and volition, in ascending order. The reason that emergent properties can exist has already been stated as being the spatial synthesis of hitherto separate inert or less complex constituent parts.

Ayn Rand was correct to make a distinction between a mere chunk of inert matter and the most complex system of all, the human organism. Surely, the former has no volition, but the latter does, and the latter does precisely because of emergent properties as described by the physicalist view.

Read other parts of "A Rational Cosmology" by clicking here.