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Abstract
How did emergence make its way into physics, threatening to replace the well established paradigm of scientific reductionism? This question is the starting point of this work. It has traditionally been given an unequivocal, single answer: emergence was introduced in physics by condensed matter physicist Philip W. Anderson in 1972 through his iconic article “More Is Different”. This article is said to be the outcome of his understanding that the behavior of big and complex aggregates of matter does not trivially follow from the known fundamental laws of physics, and thus, that the reductionist approach is limited. Instead, he argued, novel laws emerge that are unpredictable from first principles. This is essentially the message behind the century-old concept of emergence, which has received renewed attention in the philosophy of science.
This popular short story about “More Is Different” (MID) as the origin of the concept of emergence in physics has a big advantage: it is simple. A simple story is easy to tell and to remember, and it is a good synthesis of the physicist’s general message. However, as Anderson himself often emphasized, every simplicity hides enormous complexities. This work examines the complexities behind Anderson’s development and construction of the concept of emergence as a new paradigm in physics. Instead of painting a coherent picture from beginning to end, as simple stories often do, in this thesis, I will attend to the things that do not necessarily match—that is—I will pay special attention to the contradictions in Anderson’s thought. This attention will provide a new reading of MID, one that reveals the changing character of the physicist’s views about science, both before and after the publication of the 1972 article, a mutability that has been neglected by previous accounts of the story of MID and the concept of emergence in physics.
In this new account, MID continues to play a central and important role in the development of emergence in physics. However, it is by no means an isolated element. I propose that the development of emergence in physics is best understood in the discussion of a broader narrative, in particular, in Anderson’s continuous fight against what I have dubbed the “Big Machines”: high energy particle accelerators and powerful computers, used in computational methods for solid state research which gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century. For Anderson, these machines posed both material and ideological threats to his field of solid state physics and his professional identity. These threats encompassed two aspects: the asymmetry between particle physics and solid state physics in terms of intellectual prestige and funding, and the belittlement of solid state physics as an applied field lacking fundamental or theoretical innovation.
To revert this asymmetry, Anderson played a significant role in reshaping his discipline from “solid state physics” to the more theoretical and intellectually creative label of “condensed matter physics” during the 1970s. In this broader narrative, emergence will make a late and strategic appearance as Anderson’s ally in his fight against these big machines when their advance became stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the US scientific culture and environment. The subtle interplay between the pressure of these fights and his adoption and own usage and development of the concept of emergence reveals a new and more nuanced story about how emergence made its way into physics.
