Emergent Evolution of the Social

Levels of Composition: from Quarks to HHe+ Molecular Ion

“…Frankly speaking (or writing) their content is much ado about nothing [7] . Earlier works by Lloyd Morgan [8] , Samuel Alexander [9] , Charlie Dumbar Broad [10] , William Morton Wheeler [11] , Roy Wood Sellars [12] , Oliver Reiser [13] , William Pepperell Montague [14] , John Elof Boodin [15] and Jan Christiaan Smuts [16] are still greats sources of inspiration. I will mention only what I consider are the main contributions to the idea of "levels" because they present ways to create and order them and suggest some rules and properties they must satisfy.…”

“…Conger proposes a world composed by twenty-five levels, enumerated as follows: "(1) energies, (2) electrons, (3) atoms, (4) molecules, (5) astronomical masses, or bodies, such as planetesimals, (6) solar systems, (7) star clusters, (8) galaxies, or great spiral nebulae, (9) possibly one or more groups of spiral nebulae -that is, one or more astronomical "universes." Then, in the biological realm, let us say (10) organic compounds, (11) infra-cellular organisms, such as Mathews calls micelle, (12) unicellular organisms, (13) multicellular organisms, (14) plant-and-animal groups, and then several levels exhibiting more complex types of social organization, such as (15) families or tribes, (16) nations or races, and, one might go on to say, (17) "The Great Society. " Once more, in the neuropsychological realm, one might add levels for (18) specialized cells, (19) nervous areas where the conduction is indiscriminate or reversible, (20) reflex arcs, and then doubtless for several different levels of higher neural synthesis, providing for (21) complex reflexes such as are apparently operative in perception and language-reactions, (22) instinctive-emotional complexes, (23) sentiments, (24) values, and, as a final term, (25) personalities" [17] .…”

The Christian's Dilemma: Organicism or Mechanism?

“…A more careful reading would show that this is not necessarily so, and in more recent years Wilson (working with Davide Sloan Wilson) has come out emphatically for a group selection approach to evolution (see Wilson and Wilson ). Historically, one can link Edward O. Wilson back to a powerful group of emergentists at Harvard, working at the beginning of the twentieth century, including William Morton Wheeler the ant specialist ( Emergent Evolution and the Social , ); Walter B. Cannon the physiologist ( The Wisdom of the Body , ); and Lawrence J. Henderson the biochemist ( The Fitness of the Environment , ).…”

Brave new worlds: Trophallaxis and the origin of society in the early twentieth century

“…13. On Wheeler and emergence philosophy see Wheeler 1926Wheeler , 1927Wheeler , and 1928a. See also Sleigh, 1999. response that completed the circuit between the inner world of the nest inhabitants and the outer world -a distinction which Wheeler was long happy to blur, as one can see from his trophallactic diagram of 1918.…”