Semovi - Emergence in Complex Biological Systems
| When |
May 03, 2017
from 02:00 to 05:00 |
|---|---|
| Where | Grande salle du CBP (LR6 C 023), ENS de Lyon, Site Monod |
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Program
14.00 - 15.00 : Marco Nathan, University of Denver
Emergence in Complex Biological Systems
The core intuition underlying the concept of emergence is that, as systems become increasingly complex, they display properties which transcend the properties of their constituent parts and exhibit behavior that cannot be predicted or explained on the basis of laws that govern simpler systems. The main task of a philosophical analysis of emergence is to spell out in what ways, if any, emergents transcend the properties of their constituents and how one should understand the theses that their behavior is unpredictable, unexplainable, or irreducible. I provide an account according to which what makes a property ‘emergent’ is neither the irreducibility nor the inexplicability of its structure or capacities. An emergent property, I suggest, is a black-boxed explanans: an entity or process that accounts for important features at the higher level, but can be assumed without further micro-explanation. I develop my proposal by discussing examples from systems biology and suggest that the present framework brings together various aspects of extant accounts of emergence.
15.00 - 15.30 : Coffee break
15.30 - 16.00 : Guillaume Beslon, INSA/INRIA
Emergence from a Modelling Perspective. Can a model be emergent? Can it help biology?
16.00 - 16.30 : Sacha Loeve, Lyon 3
Emergence from a Philosophy of Technology Perspective. The Case of Synthetic Biology
16.30 - 17.00 : General discussion