Posted by alexandra_k on September 23, 2006, at 8:54:13 [reposted on September 25, 2006, at 0:09:09 | original URL]
In reply to Re: the brain » alexandra_k, posted by SLS on September 23, 2006, at 4:00:39
What is an emergent property?
(I've heard the term, I'm just not sure that the notion is clear)
Is it a property like liquidity?
The atoms that make up the molecule H2O don't individually or together have the property of liquidity. But if you have enough H2O molecules together (in the right kind of way) then you get the emergent property of liquidity. Is that what you mean?What would the emergent properties of mental illness be?
The behaviour?
The only way to change emergent properties is to change the lower level properties that realize them.Another analogy. There is a law in economics. Fisher's Law. It says (roughly) that all other things being equal that if you increase the amount of money in a society (by some proportion) then the worth of the money decreases by that same proportion (I think) - inflation. So that is a law of economics. It can be used to predict when inflation is likely to occur. It can be used to interveane to prevent (or minimise) inflation. Etc. But 'money' is kinda like an emergent property. I mean on the physical level money can be bits of paper or bits of metal or marks on a page even. Some number in a computer or whatever. If you had all the facts of the bits of paper and metal and marks on the page and so forth do you think you would be able to predict whether inflation was going to occur? Sometimes low level models / explanations don't capture interesting generalisations that are relevant for what we want explained. Don't know how this is relevant. Maybe it is relevant because even if we know that we need to take some money out of circulation so as to reduce inflation we can only take money out of circulation by taking away some of those bits of paper and the like.
> It might be that you and I agree on this. I will be interested to see.
I think we probably do agree. Medication, sure. But... I'd be interested to know why the problem emerged at that particular point in time. But you know time is a limited capacity resource and you don't get through as many patients in a day if you actually talk to them...
> And from the previous post, you neglected to answer my question: Do you think schizophrenia is a biological disorder?I don't think schizophrenia is a natural kind hence I'm not sure that the same explanation can be offered for all the conditions that currently are dx'd as schizophrenia.
I asked you a question (sort of). Do you think the people with sluggish schizophrenia (the political dissentors in Russia) had a biological disorder?
Modelling can be hard... Models are typically developed at the level of dx category. That is only interesting in so far as members of the same dx category are importantly similar. Unfortunately there is often more variability between members of the same dx category than there is between members of different dx categories. Basically... We aren't carving mental illnesses up right. I think it is likely that for some people... Biological intervention is likely to be most effective. For some other people psychological intervention is likely to be most effective. For some other people sociological / envioronmental is likely to be most effective. For some people a combination of two of those... For some people a combination of three...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:688931
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060922/msgs/688949.html