Emergence explained: Abstractions: Getting epiphenomena to do real work

Emergence—macro-level effects from micro-level causes—illustrates the fundamental dilemma of science and is at the heart of the conflict between reductionism and functionalism: how can there be autonomous higher level laws of nature (the functionalist claim) if everything can be reduced to the fundamental forces of physics (the reductionist position)? In this, the first of two papers, we conclude the following. (a) What functionalism calls the special sciences (sciences other than physics) do indeed study autonomous laws. (b) These laws pertain to real higher level abstractions (discussed in this paper) and entities (discussed in the second paper). (c) Higher level interactions are epiphenomenal in that they can always be reduced to fundamental physical forces. (d) Since higher-level models are simultaneously both real and reducible we cannot avoid multiscalar systems. (e) Multiscalar systems are downward entailing and not upward predicting.