Emergentism and Natural Teleology

Let's use an analogy to describe nature, the analogy of a building: with lower and higher levels. Nature is composed by entities (i.e. objects composed of matter), laws, beings, and time. Nature is organized is a structure whose levels are populated by entities, systems, and laws. In each level the entities and systems are governed by laws. There are various types of laws: micro-level laws (physical like those of matter), macro-level laws which govern systems of interrelated entities, higher-order laws that relate the micro- and macro-level laws.
It's rational to assume that in nature every effect advenes from one or more causes:

Strict mechanicism professes that each cause is a conjugation of multiple underlying causes at its micro-level. That is, the effect can be explained either by resorting to the single macro-cause C, or equivalently to the multiple causes c:

Ontological minimalism proposes that "that non-fundamental entities are nothing but collections of fundamental entities" (Humphreys 1996). This approach might work only in some aggregative systems where the properties of the aggregated (macro-level) system entail the sum of the low-level properties (a grain of sand vs a pile of sand). However, just a handful of situations in nature are amenable to be explained in this way. As a matter of fact, nature is a big array of systems arranged in levels. Thus the collection of properties of a micro-level i produces by emergence, a new set of properties at a macro-level j: 

Thus the second expression is strictly valid only on aggregative systems, while the previous is applicable to emergent systems by virtue of a higher-law (trans-ordinal law acc. to C.D.Broad) (O'Connor&Wong, 2012). The micro-causes in the left-hand brackets do not produce an effect; or if they do, it is by no means the same as the effect E produced in the right-hand brackets. An ontological, or metaphysical, or both qualitatively difference separates them.

"something genuinely novel is present in the emergent entity that is not present in entities that are prior to it, either temporally or ontologically. In addition to this novelty, the emrgent phenomena are dependent in some special sense on certain prior entities [temporally and ontologically]" (Humphreys 1996)

or from a scientist's perspective:

The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. (Anderson, 1972)

Which are the characteristics of these emergent laws? Humphreys (1997b) proposes that:

1) Novelty: previously uninstantiated property comes to have an instance. A novel kind of property.
2) ...emergent properties ... are qualitatively different from the properties from which they emerge
3) an emergent property is one that could not be possessed at a lower level-it is logically or nomologically impossible for this to occur.
4) different laws apply to emergent features than to the features from which they emerge.
5) emergent properties ... result from an essential interaction between their constituent properties,
an interaction that is nomologically necessary for the existence of the emergent property.
6) emergent properties are holistic in the sense of being properties of the entire system rather than local properties of its constituents.

While not all emergent phenomena must satisfy these criteria because "there is a wide variety of ways in which emergence can occur", they're useful nonetheless to potentially instantiate a description of emergent laws. I see this criteria of emergence as empirical observations upon the character of a higher-level laws that governs the conjugation of multiple micro-level properties and translation into a next macro-level. We don't know how can a novel set of laws can emerge from another set of laws and still be independent but related somehow. An example here might be nice: Take the beam/column structure of a building. The features of stone, cement, and steel (i.e. concrete) differ greatly from those of the structure. How and why? They differ in that the structure has the combination of base materials arranged in some way (premeditatedly) as to be able to resist particular natural loads. 1) Base micro-materials are combined to reach a bigger dimensional macro-scale. The bigger dimensional scale is predetermined for the purpose intended for the building. 2) The dimensional macro-scale has intrinsic requirements: stability to multiple types of loads. Some properties remain by aggregativity: e.g. the structure has more mass and volume that the stones. While others emerge in virtue of the constitution of the structure (purpose of the structure). What is the relationship of the low-level characteristics and that of higher-level?

Teleology and Emergence

Emergence of properties calls for teleological in that it involves purposeful systems built upon lower-level components.

to be continued....

References

Anderson, P. W. (1972) More Is Different: Broken Symmetry and the Nature of the Hierarchical Structure of Sciences. Science. 177: 4047
Humphreys, P. (1996) Aspects of Emergence, Philosophical Topics, 24:1, 53-70.
Humphreys, P. (1997b) Emergenece, Not Supervenience, Philosophy of Science, 64, S337-S345.
Walsh, D. (2012), Mechanism and purpose: A case for natural teleology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 43, 173-181.
O'Connor, Timothy and Wong, Hong Yu, "Emergent Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).


According to Humphreys, 

There is a phase transition from a individual level to a collective level. For example from liquid to solid, being the constituents the same, but not their relationships.


"Supervenience ... is taken to be a relation between two collections of properties, one at a higher level than the other."