2019/12/06 by Samuel C. Fletcher
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Philosophy and History of Science #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis
paper · doi:10.1086/707563
The concept of emergence is commonly invoked in modern physics but rarely defined. Building on recent influential work by Jeremy Butterfield, I provide precise definitions of emergence concepts as they pertain to properties represented in models, applying them to some basic examples from space-time and thermostatistical physics. The chief formal innovation I employ, similarity structure, consists in a structured set of similarity relations among those models under analysis—and their properties—and is a generalization of topological structure. Although motivated from physics, this similarity-structure-based account of emergence applies to any science that represents its possibilia with (mathematical) models.