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In philosophy, supervenience is a well-defined dependency relation between 'higher-level' (e.g. mental) and 'lower-level' (e.g. physical) properties. Informally, a group of properties X supervenes on (alternatively, is supervenient on) a group of properties Y exactly when the X-group properties are determined by the Y-group properties, where "determined by" is taken non-specifically. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Formally, X-group properties supervene on Y-group properties if and only if either of the following holds for all objects a and b:
- a and b cannot differ in their X-group properties without also differing in their Y-group properties.
- If a and b have identical Y-group properties, then they also have identical X-group properties.
- If a and b do not have identical X-group properties, then they also do not have identical Y-group properties.
(All of these formulations are logically equivalent, so if one of them holds, all of them do.) In logic, statements p and q are logically equivalent if they have the same logical content. ...
Examples
Value Properties The value of a physical object to an agent is sometimes held to be supervenient upon the physical properties of the object. In aesthetics, the beauty of La Grande Jatte might supervene on the physical composition of the painting (the specific molecules that make up the painting), the artistic composition of the painting (in this case, dots), the figures and forms of the painted image, or the painted canvas as a whole. In ethics, the goodness of an act of charity might supervene on the physical properties of the agent, the mental state of the agent (his or her intention), or the state of affairs itself. Similarly, the badness of an earthquake might supervene on the spatio-temporal entities that constituted it, the deaths it caused, or the natural disaster itself. Value is worth in general, and it is thought to be connected to reasons for certain practices, policies, actions, beliefs or emotions. ...
An agent is an autonomous entity with an ontological commitment and agenda of its own. ...
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Many see natural beauty in the folded petals of a rose. ...
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Un dimanche après-midi à lIle de la Grande Jatte) is Georges Seurats most famous work, and is an example of pointillism that is widely considered to be one of...
In science, a molecule is the smallest particle of a pure chemical substance that still retains its chemical composition and properties. ...
Detail from Seurats La Parade (1889), showing the contrasting dots of paint used in pointillism. ...
Ethics (from Greek ethikos) is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. ...
For the philosophical concept of goodness see Goodness and value theory. ...
This article refers to the act of selfless giving, and organizations which facilitate selfless giving. ...
State of affairs has some technical usages in philosophy, as well as being a phrase in everyday speech in English. ...
Mental Properties In philosophy of mind, many philosophers make the general claim that 'the mental' supervenes on 'the physical'. In its most recent form this position derives from the work of Donald Davidson, although in more rudimentary forms it had been advanced earlier by others. The claim can be taken in several senses. The simplest is perhaps as the claim that the mental properties of a person supervene on that person's physical properties. Then: Philosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness. ...
Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ...
- An atom-by-atom replication of a person will have the same mental characteristics as the original person. (This follows from the second formulation above.)
- Two mentally different people (i.e., two people who have two qualitatively different minds) must have, physically, qualitatively different brains. (This follows from the third formulation above.)
An alternative claim, advanced especially by John Haugeland, is the claim of "weak supervenience" or, at its weakest, "global supervenience". To claim that mental properties globally supervene on physical properties is to claim, merely, that a change between two possible worlds with respect to their instantiated mental properties requires some change in the physical properties instantiated in at least one of those two worlds. Importantly, it does not claim that the mental properties of an individual person supervene only on that person's physical state. John Haugeland (born in 1948), is a philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. ...
The latter, weaker thesis, is particularly important in the light of direct reference theories, and semantic externalism with regard to the content both of words and (more relevant to our concerns here) of thoughts. Imagine two physically identical people, one of them looking at a dog and the other having a dog-image projected onto his retinae. It might be reasonable to say that the former is in the mental state of perceiving a dog, whereas the latter is not and merely (falsely) believes that he is. A direct reference theory is a theory of meaning that claims that the meaning of an expression lies in what it points out in the world. ...
In the philosophy of language, semantic externalism is the belief that the meaning of a term is determined, in whole or in part, by factors external to the speaker. ...
There is also discussion amongst philosophers about mental supervenience and our experience of duration. If all mental properties supervene only upon some physical properties at durationless moments, then it may seem difficult to explain our experience of duration. The philosophical belief that mental and physical events exist at a series of durationless moments that lie between the physical past and the physical future is known as presentism, and is a form of belief in Galilean relativity. In the philosophy of time, presentism is the belief that neither the future nor the past exists. ...
In general, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the laws of physics be the same for all observers. ...
Computational Properties There are several examples of supervenience to be found in computer networking. For example, note that in a dial-up internet connection, an audio signal in a phone line transports IP packets between the user's computer and the Internet service provider's computer. In this case, the arrangement of bytes in that packet supervenes on the physics of the phone signal. More generally, each layer of the OSI Model of computer networking supervenes on the layers below it. A computer network is a system for communication between computers. ...
The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used by source and destination hosts for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. ...
An Internet service provider (ISP, also called Internet access provider) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...
The Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model (OSI Model or OSI Reference Model for short) is a layered abstract description for communications and computer network protocol design, developed as part of the Open Systems Interconnection initiative. ...
These computer examples exemplify a more general principle: we will find supervenience wherever a message is conveyed by a representational medium. When we see a letter 'a' in a page of print, for example, the meaning "latin lowercase a" supervenes on the geometry of the boundary of the printed glyph, which in turn supervenes on the ink deposition on the paper. These are the astrological glyphs as most commonly used in Western Astrology A glyph is a carved figure or character, incised or in relief; a carved pictograph; hence, a pictograph representing a form originally adopted for sculpture, whether carved or painted. ...
See also Philosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness. ...
Functionalism is the dominant theory of mental states in modern philosophy. ...
In philosophy, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts with reductionism. ...
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