Sunday 31 May 2020

Emergence


Emergence at the personal level interests me. How is creativity possible? How do new ideas emerge? How do we surpass ourselves, sublating, if you like, the previous level in a new synthesis? It doesn’t seem to arise out of data or experiments in a simplistic sense. It’s more the right sort of experiment or thought rather than more of the same standard efficient responses.

The satkaryavada theory of the non-difference of cause and effect appears to be a denial of emergence as pure novelty. Nothing comes to be which is not already there. What is not cannot act; it has no traction on reality. Plato following Parmenides in that view had to postulate the realm of ideas as being already there. They needed to be brought out or illuminated by the sun of nous. The creative solution often has an inevitability about it, once stated. Nagging Socrates was in effect saying – But you know, you know that you know. I must persuade you of that confidence. One more push.

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