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Emergent Properties of Matter, Part 2: Masterpieces Everywhere
Beauty can be found in unexpected places. In the second of his two-part series, David J. Hill examines the remarkable beauty found in the intricacies of the cell and the amazing human mind.
The Aesthetic of the Natural and the Man-Made
In my last article, we considered how our admiration for an artistic masterpiece is, in part, due to its emergent properties. And, as we established last time, an emergent property is a characteristic of a system that is not easily accounted for by considering the summation of its parts. Emergent properties are the stuff of beauty, the aesthetic element of everything from masterpieces to matter.
Consider a sunset and a painting of a sunset. They both possess a quality that is wholly separate from their parts — beauty. It is challenging to identify the individual components in each that are responsible for the aesthetic. Instead, the beauty of a sunset and the beauty of a painting of a sunset emerge seemingly disconnected from any individual parts.
Previously, we explored the emergent properties of atoms, water molecules, and DNA. But what about the basic building block of life, the cell? Are there any emergent properties that the cell demonstrates? And what properties emerge from tissues, organs, organ systems, and even the whole body?
The Cell: What Natural Life is All About
Without a doubt, cells demonstrate emergent properties. The most important property that emerges from the system of cellular components is life itself. It's been 150 years since the tenets of cell theory were formulated, and still no single substance has been found that can be added to a nonliving object to give it life. Certainly, DNA is the "molecule of life," but it can do nothing alone. In fact, for DNA to have any utility at all in the cell, hundreds of components are required to maintain, copy, and process its information. The answer to the question "What makes something alive?" certainly cannot be found in a single molecule, or even a handful of them.
It is often helpful to visualize the cell as a complex machine with parts interacting according to established processes. But this analogy falls incredibly short when considering the adaptability of cellular components to their environment. Some components have the ability to change their shape and form-fit to others. Many components are part of biochemical pathways and cycles that the cell continually fine tunes, slowing down or speeding up activity as needed. These are just two ways in which the cell can adjust to subtle internal and external changes. In light of these intricacies, the image of the cell as a static machine fails. And yet, we have no other analogous model that even begins to capture this highly dynamic and responsive conglomeration of molecules that collectively form a living thing.
The Emergence of Cellular Cooperation
An even more amazing property emerges in multi-cellular organisms: cells working together for a common function. That a single cell would coordinate with other cells to create a community (a cardiac muscle, for instance) that acts as a single entity is remarkable. If this cooperation ended here, many properties seen in larger organisms would never emerge. But, it doesn’t. In fact, tissues cooperate together to form organs like the heart. Within those organs, the tissues act as a single component, not parts consisting of more parts. They do this in the same way that the cell acts as a single entity and not merely a conglomeration of molecules.
Furthermore, multiple organs coordinate to form organ systems. For instance, the cardiovascular system is composed of the heart and the network of arteries, veins, and capillaries that transport blood through the body. Though each component has a function that adds to the overall functionality of the whole, the cardiovascular system is more than its parts. Finally, organ systems become the parts that make up an organism. That components organize themselves and coordinate with each other at various levels is truly an incredible feat.
There is no greater example of the cooperative nature of internal parts than the human body. When you consider the fact that the only thing we can voluntarily do with our bodies is move about, it's incredible that we're able to accomplish so much. And we are able to because of the human body’s ability to move in many different ways, at different rates, and with varying degrees of power. Observe the motion of a dancer, a marathon runner, a carpenter, or even your own day-to-day actions. You will be amazed at the variety of movements made possible by the cooperation of cells, tissues, organs, and organs systems within the body. The body's wide range of motion and ability to move with precision emerge from the organization of the parts. And in the meantime, all the involuntary processes occurring within us that allow us to move just continue right along by themselves. Our bodies literally free our minds from worrying about such things as "Did I beat my heart in the last three seconds?" It is easy to see why the human body is considered a masterpiece.
The aesthetic quality of even complex organisms is easy to overlook when the focus in merely on the physical. However, a full appreciation for life validates those emergent properties that define what it means to be alive.
The Emergence of Self-Awareness
The greatest emergent property of human beings is clearly the mind. There is no greater example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts than self-awareness, or that consciousness unique to humans. All other organisms demonstrate responsiveness to external stimuli and some even show the ability to learn and recognize patterns. However, self-awareness remains a feature exclusive to humans as demonstrated by the diversity of their behavior.1
There are many naturalistic attempts to explain how consciousness emerges from the brain, such as neural networks or the complexity of electrical wave patterns. Again, breaking the mind down into its physical parts just doesn’t seem to provide a plausible explanation for the depth and breadth of human thought and emotion. The mind is more than meat. Clearly, there is a correlation between the thoughts of the mind and the hard-wiring of the brain. But to suggest that all that is in the mind is caused by the interactions of matter and energy in the brain is deflating. The flippant suggestion "Love is just a chemical in the brain" rings hollow because it disregards the aesthetic of self-awareness and the masterpiece quality of human beings.
For those that believe the mind is merely a product of highly-organized matter, consider the great experiment that we may be witnesses to over the next decade or so. Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines, has stated, "We'll have sufficient hardware to recreate human intelligence pretty soon. We'll have it in a supercomputer by 2010."2
So the question is simple: Even if a computer has the physical capacity for consciousness, will consciousness emerge solely from that capacity? The answer to this question is pending, and it has great metaphysical ramifications. It may well prove whether emergent properties are purely physical phenomenon or whether something beyond nature is necessitated.
The Mystery of Masterpieces
Emergent properties are truly a mystery. Whether in art or nature, the awe we experience in looking at a masterpiece causes us to ask, "How is such beauty even possible?" Many attempt to deconstruct emergent properties. Nevertheless, these properties seem to defy the insufficient, hand-waving explanations people provide to downplay their existence.
Ultimately, we must wrestle with the improbability of emergent properties arising from a purely materialistic, non-spiritual world. Are they simply artifacts of the complexity of matter, or are they installed by a Designer?
Furthermore, are we willing to address from a scientific point of view the aesthetic properties that emerge in the natural world? Can we simply ignore, for instance, the beauty of a child or pass it off as merely the particular organization of muscle and skin tissue on top of bone? Is that scientifically honest?
The truly amazing thing is that we find "masterpieces" in every state of matter and every level of life. Emergent properties arise because, somehow, the whole of a system can somehow be greater than the sum of its parts. It is easy to recognize that there is more to a painting than simply its composition of mediums and pigments. Hopefully, we can strive to see the physical world in the same way, with the same awe.
C O F F E E S H O PDo the emergent properties we see in the human body point to Intelligent Design?
Join the discussion!
When we look at a piece of art, it's evident that an artist created it. Likewise, if we are willing to wonder at the emergent properties of matter we see in nature, we may just catch a glimpse of the Master Artist whose masterpiece we find ourselves immersed in.
- Although there have been suggestions that certain animals, including elephants, gorillas, and dolphins have some degree of consciousness, the credibility of these studies must be questioned. Scientists seeking to identify consciousness in animals must study nonhuman organisms for evidence of conscious behavior. However, the only example of consciousness we know is demonstrated by human behavior. So, scientists look for evidence of consciousness by recognizing human-like behavior in nonhumans. Unfortunately, many animals are good at mimicking behavior that is modeled by humans and will respond favorably to positive feedback. It is difficult to see how truly non-modeled, human-like behavior can be distinguished from positive-feedback-induced mimicking. Furthermore, it is possible that organisms are conscious in a way that is fundamentally different from humans. But, how then would scientists identify it? The difficulty of this problem is the reason that many have turned to computers to demonstrate consciousness, since it is believed that it will be easier to identify in a nonliving thing. Back^
- "Ubiquity Interviews Ray Kurzweil." Ubiquity, vol. 7, issue 01, 2006. Back^
David J. Hill is a freelance writer in science education and a copyeditor in medical education. His interests include cultural and Christian perspectives on science and technology. In his spare time, he can be found obsessing about why the Book of Job is not talked about more on Sunday mornings and whether or not he should start a book on the lives of 18th-century scientists entitled, Alchemy Rules!: When Turning Stuff into Gold Was the Topic at the Water Cooler. He attended graduate school in chemistry at the University of Illinois and did his undergraduate work at Point Loma Nazarene University. He and his wife, Angel, have three children.
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