as sub-systems within which the elements are differentiated by a more dense and complex system of relations.” (Hayek, 1951, p. 77) In the final chapter of that book he famously pushed this argument to an extreme point while noting arguments of Gödel (Koppl and Rosser, 2002) regarding the limits to self-awareness: though we may understand its modus operandi in general terms, or, in other “…even words, possess an explanation of the principle on which it operates, we shall never, by means of the same brain, be able to arrive at a detailed explanation of its working in particular circumstances, or be able to predict what the results of its operations will be. To achieve this would require a brain of a higher order of complexity, though it might be built on the same general principles. Such a brain might be able to explain what happens in our brain, but it would in turn still be unable fully to explain its own operations, and so on.” (Hayek, 1951, pp. 188-189) It is not immediately obvious that these arguments apply to his discussion of spontaneous order in socio-economic systems. That discussion referred to older arguments from the Scottish Englightenment, and took the following form: the economists understood for the time was that the market as it had grown “What up was an effective way of making man take part in a process more complex and extended than he could comprehend and that it was through the market that he was made to contribute ‘to ends which were no part of his purpose.’” (Hayek, 1948, pp. 14-15) Eventually he would combine these strands of argument into a broader perspective on emergence and complexity. He would directly link this formulation to the older arguments made by the members of the British emergentist school, tracing back the origins of their arguments through Lewes to Mill as described above in this paper and also argued by Lewis (2012). Thus:
as sub-systems within which the elements are differentiated by a more dense and complex system of relations.” (Hayek, 1951, p. 77) In the final chapter of that book he famously pushed this argument to an extreme point while noting arguments of Gödel (Koppl and Rosser, 2002) regarding the limits to self-awareness: “…even though we may understand its modus operandi in general terms, or, in other words, possess an explanation of the principle on which it operates, we shall never, by means of the same brain, be able to arrive at a detailed explanation of its working in particular circumstances, or be able to predict what the results of its operations will be. To achieve this would require a brain of a higher order of complexity, though it might be built on the same general principles. Such a brain might be able to explain what happens in our brain, but it would in turn still be unable fully to explain its own operations, and so on.” (Hayek, 1951, pp. 188-189) It is not immediately obvious that these arguments apply to his discussion of spontaneous order in socio-economic systems. That discussion referred to older arguments from the Scottish Englightenment, and took the following form: “What the economists understood for the time was that the market as it had grown up was an effective way of making man take part in a process more complex and extended than he could comprehend and that it was through the market that he was made to contribute ‘to ends which were no part of his purpose.’” (Hayek, 1948, pp. 14-15) Eventually he would combine these strands of argument into a broader perspective on emergence and complexity. He would directly link this formulation to the older arguments made by the members of the British emergentist school, tracing back the origins of their arguments through Lewes to Mill as described above in this paper and also argued by Lewis (2012). Thus:
EMERGENT.SELF.docx