Articles #indeterminacy

The notion of metaphysical emergence isn’t specifically tied to physics. To be sure, the notion of metaphysical emergence is initially inspired by attention to special science entities, which appear to cotemporally (i.e., synchronically but not necessarily instantaneously) depend on (typically massively complex) combinations of physical goings-on, but which also appear to be to some extent ontologically and causally autonomous—that is, to be distinct from, and distinctively efficacious as compared to, lower-level physical goings-on. But the general notion of metaphysical emergence as coupling dependence and autonomy—as between, e.g., mental states and brain (and ultimately fundamental physical) states—could in-principle apply to other purported dependence bases. Continuing the End Times series, Richard Marshall interviews Jessica Wilson