Interesting thread here. When "emergence" is discussed in neuroscience, I find the most salient predictor of people's perspectives is their training. Computational people are often like, "Emergence? Of course, no shit." Biologists in contrast seem to often view this as a novel stance. 🧠📈 🧪
Mostly agreed! But what is the definition for an emergent property if everything is explained by exact predictions of sets of equations?
I would say: a property that can only be predicted by equations at the systems-level, rather than via equations at the constituent parts level.
Yes, this is what I meant about being a “geriatric” neuroscientist w/ an entirely reductive rather than computational training. I see the field as shifting toward the latter though. I’m in the middle of Nicole Rust’s book, Elusive cures,which makes the case for this shift in studying brain disorders
I think this relates to the underlying philosophy implicitly expressed by the methodologies. When you're used to studying equations of interacting units, emergence is a key, obvious idea. When you're used to trying to break everything down to the molecular mechanisms, it seems radical.