Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

examined in previous chapters, the Aristotelian soul is ‘hyperdualist’. It lies beyond any division we might make between say, mind and matter, or, more generally, between form and content. We could say that soul emerges from the combination of mind and body, plus context. And the critical thing to note here is what’s called ‘emergence’.

There are what seem like straight-forward examples of emergence from chemistry. Features of chemical elements emerge from atomic structure and the behaviour of every chemical compound is a case of emergence. It could even be said that location in space is an emergent property of particles that otherwise are only potentials in a quantum universe. This is accepted without question — but whilst it seems that emergence is very much at work again in biology, in eco-systems and the bio-sphere, the manner and explanation of what exactly is emergent is by no means clear, let alone how the emergence happens! We could say though that a lot of communication is evident across species in eco-systems — communication that points towards mutual aid. And when we get to human societies we have an explosion of phenomena that are not evident from our biological roots. That’s not a reason to try to deny that it happens — that would be like trying to deny the properties of a chemical compound. Instead, I think we just need to accept that there’s more for us to figure out! I’d go as far as suggesting that emergence is one of the most important narratives of the universe! And it’s not just the emergence itself that is the story — it’s how that emergence then affects what’s below it. Oddly, at least for the moment,

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