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emergentism and teleology

This post is part of a thought experiment I'm conducting, using emergentism as a  pivotal position.... one that opens the door to a view of nature that undercuts materialism, is perhaps to an Aristotelian understanding of matter/form and leads to theism.

Materialists would look at human activities as more complicated versions of those done by lower animals.  Such a position is reductionistics inasmuch as it implies that what-seems-higher is just a more complicated version of the lower (we are just a pile of chemicals, etc.)

Emergence affirms that higher level activites are not reducible.  It also maintains that higher operations build upon lower (I would want to correct that position  in part).

My point is that "higher" always has to do with higher levels of unity.  Think of the knowledge of universal truths; and of the notion of the common good.  These involve objects that are one and the same for many different folks at different times.  Objective unity (or maybe unicity?).

By focusing on unity, one can unite antireductionist themes that have to do with math along with those that have to do with morality/human action/aesthetics/stuff like that.



Emergence can be understood as a movement toward higher levels of unity.  That theme would unite points about math and morality.

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