Robert Logan

Chapter 4 McLuhan and Causality: Technological Determinism, Formal Cause and EmergenceThere is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening - McLuhan

Introduction

One of the most controversial aspects of Marshall McLuhans study of media and their effects is the relationship of his approach to causality and determinism. Despite his claims to the contrary he has been accused of being a technological determinist. We have already encountered his claim that he begin[s] with effects and work[s] round to the causes (Molinaro, McLuhan, C., and Toye 1987, 478), which is quite the opposite of a deterministic approach. Complicating matter even more he describes this approach of reversing cause and effect as formal cause, the term that was first formulated by Aristotle in Book V of Metaphysics as part of Aristotles four causes (i.e. material, efficient, formal and final cause). I will argue that the simplest way to understand McLuhans position vis--vis causality and determinism is to recognize that McLuhan was basically foreshadowing emergence theory if not in name at least in spirit.

But what is emergence theory? An emergent system is a composite system that has properties that cannot be derived from, reduced t or predicted from the properties of the components of which it is composed. A living organism is emergent because it has properties that the individual chemicals of which it is made do not possess. Even water in its liquid form has properties of surface tensions and liquidity that its individual water molecules do not possess. And a water molecule has properties not possessed by the two hydrogen atoms and the one oxygen atom of which it is composed. A society has properties not possessed by the individuals that make it up. There are two ways in which the term emergence can be interpreted that go by the names of strong and weak emergence. In strong emergence the properties of a composite system cannot be reduced to the properties of the components of which it is composed. In weak emergence the properties of a composite system can be reduced to the properties of the components of which it is composed. The notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which dates back to Aristotle and John Stuart Mill, is basically a form of weak emergence as these thinkers never discuss the irreducibility of the properties of the composite system to those of its components. Mill for example correctly states in 1859 in Of the Composition of Causes, The chemical combination of two substances produces, as is well known, a third substance with properties entirely different from those of either of the two substances separately, or of both of them taken together. It is well know, however, that the chemical properties of compounds can be reduced to the properties of the atoms of which they are composed by making use of quantum mechanics.

As for Aristotle his formulation in the Metaphysics of, the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, does not address the question of reducibility. Aristotle also developed in his account of biology something somewhat like emergence, namely, the notion of potencies by which

the adult form of the human or animal emerges out of its youthful form. (Unlike contemporary emergence theories, however, he held that the complete form is already present in the organism from the beginning, like a seed; it just needs to be transformed from its potential state to its actual state.) Aristotles explanation of emergence included formal causes, which operate through the form internal to the organism, and final causes, which pull the organism (so to speak) toward its final teleos or perfection (Clayton 2006, 5).

Aristotle's analysis of cause presumed that there was an agent, the source of an efficient cause, with a purpose that was the final cause using certain materials, the material cause to achieve that final cause making use of an existing pattern or form that played the role of formal cause. With emergent phenomena the pattern or form is not known ahead of time, as one cannot predict beforehand how the components of a complex system will self-organize themselves. There is certainly no purpose in the way the components self-organize themselves because the purpose of the system if it has one only becomes apparent after it has emerged not before. It is similar to the way that the pattern or form of the emergent system is only known after the system emerges and hence cannot be considered a cause but rather an effect. There is no final cause for the same reason there is no efficient cause - what emerges is not due to the purpose of some agent. One could argue that the purpose of the emergent system is the emergent system itself but this is to say that the purpose of the effect is the effect itself, which is tautological. In short neither Aristotles biology nor his four-cause analysis can account for strong emergence.

There is no simple linear cause and effect relationship in the emergence of an emergent system as the components that make up the emergent system exert an upward effect on the composite system (the parts creating the whole) and vice-versa the composite system exerts downward effects on its components, which form constraints on the behavior of those components. The interactions of the components that lead to the self-organization of the emergent system are non-linear because of that upward and downward causation. The lateral non-linear causation of the components of the system among themselves actually creates the emergent system. The emergent system then in turn acts downward on those components of which it is composed.

Before the nature of emergence and complexity theory was understood it was thought that complex non-linear systems were the exception to the rule in nature. We now realize that complexity is actually the norm rather than an aberration and that most forms of causality are non-linear and without a purposeful agent. The four causes of Aristotle provide a description in those rare cases where there is an agent with a purpose, the requisite materials and a plan or form. Back in the past when philosophers thought in terms of a demiurge that created the world Aristotles four causes made sense as a way to describe nature.

With the ecological approach we use to describe so much of nature today Aristotles four causes are an anachronism. What McLuhan who wanted to retain some of the traditional tools of the classical period has done is to redefine formal cause along the lines of the reversal of cause and effect and the reversal of figure and ground. The ground in which Aristotle operated was highly visual and literate in which only one thing at a time was entertained. It is therefore not surprising that the twist that McLuhan gave to Aristotle to bring him up to date would basically entail emergence theory. McLuhans approach to cause and effect was non-linear whereas that of Aristotles was linear as befits a visual thinker.

Although McLuhan never discussed emergence explicitly I will argue that his field approach, his reversal of cause and effect and the non-linear interaction of figure and ground that are the trademarks of the McLuhan approach are best understood as downward and upward causation between an emergent system and the components of which it is composed and as such hints at emergence. I am not the first to suggest a connection between McLuhans approach and emergence or systems thinking. Lance Strate (2010) also explores this connection and documents earlier attempts in this direction including my own earlier work when he wrote, Systems concepts and approaches do appear in the media ecology literature over the past two decades (see, for example, Logan, 2007; Rushkoff, 1994, 2006; Strate, 2006; Zingrone, 2001).We will begin this study by first dismissing the absurd claim that McLuhan was a technological determinist. We then develop our thesis that McLuhan was in fact an emergentist and a strong one at that. In order to nuance McLuhans relation to emergence theory the distinction will be made between strong emergence theory in which the properties of the emergent system can not be derived from, predicted from or reduced to the properties of the components of which it is made and weak emergence theory, which states that while the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the properties of the whole are reducible to its constituent parts. Weak emergence precedes McLuhans work and dates back to Aristotle and John Stuart Mill.

We will show that McLuhan foreshadowed a basically strong emergentist position, one that only emerged explicitly (pun intended) after his passing in the 1980s. Earlier forms of emergence in the modern era date back to George Henry Lewes (1875), the scholar who first used the term emergence that was picked up by a number of scholars particularly emergent evolutionists whose work went into disfavor with the rise of the science of genetics in the 1920s and 1930s and the triumph of an analytical, experimental approach to biology (Corning 2002). Emergence began to make a comeback during the time McLuhan was beginning his research according to Corning (2002):

A much broader reaffirmation of the importance of wholes in nature occurred in the 1950s with the rise of general systems theory. Inspired especially by the writings of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the systems movement was to that era what complexity theory is today.

In his book War and Peace in the Global Village (McLuhan, Fiore and Angel 1968), McLuhan refers explicitly to the general systems theory work of von Bertalanffy, which is a hint of McLuhans interest in systems theory. We also know that McLuhan was familiar with the work of Norbert Wiener.

It was only after McLuhan had completed his work that emergence theory and complexity theory really took off. As Corning noted: The re-emergence of emergence as a legitimate, mainstream concept roughly coincided with the growth of scientific interest in the phenomenon of complexity and the development of new, non-linear mathematical tools particularly chaos theory and dynamical systems theory which allowed scientists to model the interactions within complex, dynamic systems in new and insightful ways. Most of these developments occurred after the passing of McLuhan in 1980.Given the timelines of the re-emergence of emergence theory and the emergence of complexity and chaos theory McLuhans parallels with strong emergence, complexity and chaos theory are a result of the unique approach he took to his study of the effects of media. I will draw upon many of McLuhans insights and show how they independently parallel many of the aspects of strong emergence such as his observation that the complexity due to any change in the means of communication creates a situation in which predictions and controls are not possible McLuhan (1955). I will show that McLuhans identification of breakpoints in communications such as the introduction of the alphabet or the printing press parallel the phase transitions characteristic of emergent systems. I also identify a link between McLuhans the medium is the message and Brian Arthurs application of emergence theory to economics and in particular Arthurs notion of increasing returns. I will show that a mediums ability to create an environment of service and disservice parallels niche construction in the Darwinian evolution in the biosphere.

To conclude our study a comparison will be made of McLuhans brand of formal cause as described by him and strong emergence theory. I will argue that formal cause as used by McLuhan is in fact closer to emergence theory than to Aristotles formulation of formal cause. I will also argue that McLuhans brand of formal cause is not restricted to just the understanding of human artifacts but can be used to understand emergence within nature as well.

I find it paradoxical that McLuhan would hearken back to Aristotle and his notion of formal cause because of the disconnect between McLuhans thinking and that of Aristotle. For Aristotle a proposition is either true or false. He was the first to formulate the law of the excluded middle in his book On Interpretation that states either a proposition is true or its negation is true but not both. For McLuhan it is possible for a proposition to be half true, which according to McLuhan is still a lot of truth (There is a lot of truth in a half-truth). McLuhan was never tempted by the academic ... virtue of carefully qualifying his statements... when accused of purveying half truths, he often defended himself with the remark, worthy of Lenin, that half a brick can break a window quite as well as a whole brick (Marchand 1989, 189). McLuhan embraced the thinking of quantum mechanics and that of Niels Bohr, who once said, The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

The following statements of McLuhan are also not in the spirit of Aristotle for whom the truth and being correct were sacred values. Not for McLuhan who said:

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

You don't like those ideas? I got others.

You mean my whole fallacys wrong?

I may be wrong, but Im never in doubt.Another disconnect between McLuhan and Aristotle is the difference in their attitude to the order in which a text should be developed. In his Poetics Aristotle states, " " ("For a plot to be whole it must have a beginning, middle and end"). McLuhans texts are famous for a lack of a beginning, middle and end. The Gutenberg Galaxy is an arbitrary collection of short articles that repeat certain ideas over and over again. Understanding Media are a collection of articles describing the effects of certain media without any particular logic to the order in which the media are presented. Other McLuhan books such as The Medium is the Massage, War and Peace in the Global Village, The Book of Probes, From Clich to Archetype, Culture is Our Business are a collection of observations with no particular order to their development.

McLuhan was not a Technological Determinist He was an Emergentist

One of the charges leveled at McLuhan in an attempt to trivialize his work is that he was merely a technological determinist. Given his reversal of cause and effect and his arguments of their simultaneity it is absurd to consider McLuhan as a technological determinist yet the charge has been leveled and it is best to put it to rest.

Was he in fact a technological determinist? This is a difficult question to answer because the term technological determinist is a loaded term used by many scholars as a pejorative to dismiss the work of others as being nave or simplistic. Despite the fact that McLuhan did not operate from a point of view or a theoretical base he was accused by many of being a technological determinist. P. David Marshall (2004, 31) is just one of many communications scholars who tried to tar McLuhan with the technological determinist brush when he wrote: Because of the simple relationship between technology and its capacity to transform society, McLuhan is rightly labeled a technological determinist.

In fact, P. David Marshall is the one who is being simplistic in suggesting that McLuhan proposed that there existed a simple relationship between technology and its capacity to transform society. If P. David Marshall had read the opening pages of The Gutenberg Galaxy carefully he would have encountered the following description McLuhan made of his project. Far from being deterministic, however, the present study will, it is hoped, elucidate a principal factor in social change which may lead to a genuine increase in human autonomy. There you have it in McLuhans own words he did not intend his study to be deterministic.

P. David Marshall (2004) made another phony charge in trying to label McLuhan as technological determinist when he suggested that, McLuhan places too much importance on one factor in shaping society and hence overlooks political and economic forces. In fact the opposite is true. McLuhan constantly examines the connections between media and communications on the one hand and commerce and the nature of work on the other hand. For example, McLuhan observed that electric technology ended the dichotomy between work and leisure. McLuhan and Nevitt (1972) co-authored the book Take Today: The Executive as Dropout in which they analyzed the impact of media and technology on economics and politics.

McLuhan biographer Coupland (2010, 187) argued that rather than overlooking political and economic forces that McLuhan actually presaged the profound changes that took place long after his passing.

McLuhans writing was profoundly politicalthe changes he foretold werent overnight phenomena. They were about changes in cognition, cultural shifts that would cause shifts in the evolution of humankindsuch events as the collapse of communism and the [emergence of] jihad.

What is Determinism and Is It Such a Bad Thing Anyway

The charge of technological determinism cuts in two directions. McLuhans critics used it in the pejorative sense to dismiss his work, but there is the flip side to determinism. For example, consider the fact that determinism is at the heart of much explanatory science. Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein and Darwin were all determinists. Any formulator of a scientific law is a determinist. Even quantum mechanics, which gives up on causality at the micro-atomic level, retains it for predicting the behaviour of large ensembles of particles, which have led to our understanding of sold state physics that makes todays digital technology possible.

McLuhan developed a very rich relationship between technology and media and their impact on society. Certainly McLuhan is guilty as charged despite his explicit statement to the contrary, if one wishes to label anyone who posits a mere relationship between technology and societal transformation as a technological determinist. Anyone one who would deny a relationship between technology and societal transformation would be hopelessly nave and out of touch with social realities. McLuhan while connecting social change to technology did not suggest a simple linear connection between the two. Rather he adopted an environmental and field description of their relationship. Technology was an important factor in understanding social change but clearly not the only one. Having extracted the poison of the charge of technological determinism, the question becomes to what extent was McLuhan a technological determinist and what kind of technological determinist was he.

There is no question that a central tenet of McLuhans approach to understanding media is that they contribute in a very important if not dominant way to social, political, cultural, educational and economic transformations. McLuhans notions that the medium is the message and media are living vortices of power are certainly two cases in point. Yet having established McLuhan as a technological determinist in the sense that technologys impact on societal processes is important we are left with the question as to whether or not he was a nave technological determinist as some have claimed. Clearly McLuhan was not a single cause explainer of anything. He railed against the notion of the point of view and the single vision of Newton. If you had a point of view, that stayed put (McLuhan, McLuhan, Staines 2003, 226). He described an insight as the sudden awareness of a complex process, which is how he regarded the relationship between media and society.

McLuhans Field Approach

McLuhan (1962, 7) describes his methodology with the opening line of his book The Gutenberg Galaxy. He wrote, The Gutenberg Galaxy develops a mosaic or field approach to its problems. Such a mosaic image of numerous data and quotations in evidence offers the only practical means of revealing causal operations in history.

In Understanding Media McLuhan (1964) developed the notion of a field associated with electric information, which he related to the electric field. The field notion was a key concept and organizing principle for McLuhan in his understanding of the post-Gutenberg world, which he viewed as a total field of interacting events (ibid., 248). A field approach implies an ecological approach. An ecosystem can only be treated and described with a field approach. There are too many elements in the media ecosystem like the interactions of all forms of media and the humans that interact with each other through them for it to be described as anything other than a field. It is not possible to describe them one component at a time. Newtonian mechanics could describe the solar system one celestial body at a time but that approach broke down for describing the interactions of electrical particles because of the sheer number of them that approaches 10 to the power of 26 or 27 (1026 or 1027). It is also the case that the media environment or mediasphere also consists of many different components, namely the 8 billion humans that inhabit the planet and all of the technological media through which they interact with each other and their physical environment.

The electric age gave us the means of instant, total field-awareness (ibid., 56).

Electric media, because of their total "field" character, tend to eliminate the fragmented specialties of form and function that we have long accepted as the heritage of alphabet, printing, and mechanization (ibid., 243).

Clearly McLuhan made use of a field approach, which de facto rejects the notion of a linear cause and effect model that characterizes nave technological determinism. Describing the effects of electric media he wrote, We live today in the Age of Information and Communication because electric media instantly and constantly create a total field of interacting events in which all men participate (McLuhan 1964, 248). McLuhan adopted a total-field-theory approach, which I believe was influenced by his understanding of modern 20th century science as the following passage suggests,

All types of linear approaches to situations past, present, or future are useless. Already in the sciences there is recognition of the need for a unified field theory, which enable scientists to use one continuous set of terms by way of relating the various scientific universes (McLuhan 1953, 126).

The unified field theory approach that McLuhan advocates retrieves Einsteins Theory of Relativity in which space and time are united in a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Using the Laws of Media McLuhans field approach enhances media ecology, obsolesces content analysis, retrieves Einsteins four dimensional space-time continuum, and flips into the reversal of cause and effect.

McLuhan, Emergence and Complexity Theory

Rather than regarding McLuhan as a technological determinist I believe it is more accurate to consider him as an early emergentist. McLuhan without explicitly making use of complexity theory and emergence was basically applying that kind of thinking to his analysis of communications and the impact of technology. McLuhans recognition of the non-linear dynamic aspect of the relationship between media and society in a certain sense foreshadowed the notions of non-linear dynamics, co-evolution and complexity or strong emergence theory and to a certain extent chaos theory.

Communication theorists whose approach was that of content analysis basically embraced stability. For them the arrival of a new technology did not change the communication environment and the meaning of a message was purely a function of its content totally independent of the medium used to transmit the content. For them the medium is not the message the content is. Whereas for McLuhan, the entrance of a new technology changed the entire communication environment by interacting with all of the earlier forms of technology and the meaning of a communication was effected by the medium through which it was communicated. He wrote, A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them (McLuhan, E. and Zingrone 1995, 278).

I am not suggesting that McLuhan played any role in the development of emergence and complexity theory but rather that in his non-mathematical approach to understanding media and their effects he independently developed ideas that paralleled complexity work in physics, biology and economics. There is a hint of emergence or complexity theory in a 1955 paper of McLuhan (1955) in which he wrote, It is therefore, a simple maxim of communication study that any change in the means of communication will produce a chain of revolutionary consequences at every level of culture and politics. And because of the complexity of the components in this process, predictions and controls are not possible.

I find this passage quite prescient because one of the basic tenets of complexity theory is that complex non-linear systems have properties not possessed by the components of which they are composed and it is impossible to predict those properties in advance. In terms of biological evolution this translates into the notion that one cannot prestate Darwinian pre-adaptations (Kauffman, Logan et. al. 2007). The reason that I find this prescient is that as early as 1955 way before strong emergence and complexity theory emerged (pun intended) McLuhan seems to be aware of systems theory, which was just beginning to be formulated. It is possible that McLuhan arrived at these ideas on his own as a result of his field approach to understanding media.

Although McLuhan was aware of cybernetics and general systems theory the formulation of emergence and complexity theory did not take off until after his death in 1980 as described above. The first meetings of the group that founded the Santa Fe Institute took place in 1984 but McLuhan had already incorporated many of the ideas that became part of this movement in his work dating back to the 60s such as his focus on pattern recognition.

We are now living in a world where things change so rapidly that anybody can spot the configuration, the pattern of change and were living increasingly in a world of pattern recognition. (http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/electric-age/1968-pattern-recognition.php)

McLuhans stress on pattern recognition is an integral part of the approach of complexity theory. McLuhans emphasis on a field approach rather than a linear sequential, one thing at a time, mechanistic approach translates into an anti-reductionist stance, which is at the heart of complexity theory with its focus on non-linear dynamics. McLuhan was totally opposed to the point of view or the reductionist single vision of Newton. He definitely embraced the notion that the dynamics of media in the age of electric communication is non-linear. He wrote with co-author Nevitt,

Nils Bohrs complementarity that represents atomic interactions as both acoustic waves and visual particles is exemplified by every process involving the continuous interplay of simultaneous actions.Such complementarity of figure-ground appears as a causal relation in all pre-packaged processes. Complementarity is the process whereby effects become causes. Today, as causes and effects merge instantaneously, the new common ground is neither container nor category, but the vastness of space via media (McLuhan and Nevitt 1972).

The following description of complexity by Brian Arthur (2007) who applied complexity theory to economics parallels many of the approaches of McLuhan.

Complexity theory is really a movement of the sciences. Standard sciences tend to see the world as mechanistic. That sort of science puts things under a finer and finer microscope. In biology the investigations go from classifying organisms to functions of organisms, then organs themselves, then cells, and then organelles, right down to protein and enzymes, metabolic pathways, and DNA. This is finer and finer reductionist thinking. The movement that started complexity looks in the other direction. Its asking, how do things assemble themselves? How do patterns emerge from these interacting elements? Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. Its important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. Theyre open-ended.

The interacting elements that McLuhan studied were media whose interaction with each other are non-linear and open-ended. Each new medium creates a new environment (McLuhan 1964, 158) and this creation of new environments will continue as long as new media emerge, a process that has proceeded uninterrupted since genus Homo created their first tools. McLuhans media ecology approach is essentially a systems thinking approach that incorporates the notion that the interactions of the media among themselves is non-linear, i.e. causes and effects merge instantaneously. Environments, ecosystems or ecologies by the very nature of their non-linear dynamics are emergent systems. "Environments are not just containers, but are processes that change the content totally (McLuhan, E. and Zingrone 1995, 273)." McLuhans picture of communications is very fluid in which a medium played a dynamic role in communications rather than being a passive vessel for messages transmitted between agents and hence the interaction among media, their content and the senders and receivers of information is a non-linear and complex one. Basically, media ecology is a form of complexity theory.In complexity theory new levels of order emerge as phase transitions from one form of organization to another. Another element of McLuhans thought that parallels complexity theory is his idea that a new medium gives rise to new patterns of communication, work, social organization and cognition. I would suggest that these new patterns are emergent and represent phase transitions. According to emergence theory as aggregates gain a level of complexity novel properties emerge; these properties cannot be reduced to or predicted from the lower level from which they emerged (el-Hani and Pereira 2000, 133). With the introduction of a new medium into an existing media environment new properties of the media environment emerge.

McLuhan showed that with the arrival of a new medium society, work, and learning all go through a major change in which novel properties emerge; these properties cannot be reduced to or predicted from the lower level from which they emerged (ibid.). These novel properties that emerge represent in terms of complexity theory a phase transition that parallels the phase transition from ice to water or water to steam in thermodynamics. One cannot predict the properties of water from ice. In the same way one cannot predict the properties and impacts of written expression from spoken language or theproperties and impacts of the printing press from hand written manuscripts. Every new medium gives rise to a phase transition in which new forms of expression emerge withproperties and impacts that cannot be predicted from the media environment that preceded the arrival of the new medium as McLuhan documented.

An example of a phase transition is the one that took place with the emergence of speech and Homo sapiens from pre-verbal hominids resulting in a richer culture and the uniquely human ability to plan. McLuhan described this development in the following terms: All media are active metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms. The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way.

The next phase transition that McLuhan described was the one that occurred with the introduction of writing and the transition from audile-tactile space of oral culture characterized by the way in which information is processed simultaneously in real time to the visual space of literate culture in which the forms of space and time are uniform, continuous and connected and information is processed one thing at a time.

Other phase transitions that McLuhan identified were the introduction of

a. the alphabet, which led to the emergence of abstract science, deductive logic, monotheism, history and philosophy (McLuhan and Logan 1977);

b. the printing press, which led to the emergence of individualism, vernacular literature, nationalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, mass production and industrialization (McLuhan 1962);

c. electric media such as the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television, which led to the return to or re-emergence of the audile-tactile patterns of oral culture (McLuhan 1964). In each case one could not have predicted the outcome and effects of these media or the developments that followed in their wake, as is the case with any form of strong emergence.

I would suggest that we can add to this list one more phase transition in communications that McLuhan did not live to see, namely the arrival of digital media which possess many of the properties of electric media that McLuhan identified but also new properties that one could not have foreseen. In addition to the characteristics that digital media possess by virtue of also being electric media they also possess the properties of mobility, ubiquity, convergence, aggregation of content, social collectivity and remix (Logan 2010). McLuhan actually hinted at some of these developments but digital media represent emergent phenomena as they gave rise to totally new developments and properties of communication that never existed with electric mass media (ibid.).

McLuhan pointed out that the introduction of a new medium resulted in the re-organization of the media environment with the emergence of new phenomena that could not have been imagined in the older regime. This corresponds to one of the central themes of complexity theory, namely that one cannot predict the behaviour of the new composite entity (i.e. the new media environment that emerges with the new medium) based on ones knowledge of the components of that composite medium. One could not have predicted the emergence of the Web based on ones knowledge of the Internet nor all of the Webs assets such as Wikipedia, iTunes, social media and blogs that emerged one after another based on ones knowledge of the Web. In fact many of the successful blockbuster Web applications were not planned in the way they finally emerged. Flickr was not designed to be a photo application but rather as a social medium but because the founders of Flickr built an excellent photo sharing capacity into their original design the use of the site evolved into todays form. The properties of Flickr emerged as the Web site we know today as a result of the process of self-organization of the original site and its users. Wikipedia started out by soliciting articles from experts, but because they allowed input and editing privileges from its users, it self-organized into its present form where articles are crowd sourced from its users.

One of the interesting points that McLuhan made is that not only is it not possible to predict the new properties and new patterns that emerge with the introduction of a new medium it is also the case that most people cannot even detect the changes that the new medium has introduced. Most people with the exception of artists are completely oblivious to the changes and continue to operate as they did before the introduction of that new medium or use the new medium in more or less the same way they used the older media. Any medium tends to create a completely new environment [that] gets very little recognition as a form except from the artist (McLuhan, McLuhan, Staines 2003, 67).

The Medium is the Message, the Butterfly Effect and Brian Arthurs Increasing Returns

I would like to suggest that McLuhans famous one-liner the medium is the message is equivalent to the butterfly effect of chaos theory and Brian Arthurs notion of increasing return. What all three of these phenomena have in common is that a small change in the environment coupled with a positive feedback loop can lead to an enormous structural change. Edward Lorenz discovered while using his non-linear model of the weather that a very small change in the initial conditions could create enormous differences in the outcome of the predictions that the model made. Known in chaos theory as the butterfly effect it suggested that a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could cause a tornado in Kansas. Brian Arthur challenging the notion that an economic system could achieve equilibrium by balancing supply and demand showed that the positive feedback from the marketplace, i.e. increasing concerns, could reinforce certain trends and give rise to anomalies such as the concentration of certain industries in certain locales such as the phenomena of Silicon Valley or the concentration of biotech companies in San Diego.

McLuhans idea that the medium is the message suggests that major impact of a medium is not the content that its transmits but rather the environment that it creates, which leads to effects much greater that the messages that form its content. Like the butterfly that flaps its wings in Asia giving rise to a tornado in Kansas, Gutenberg generating copies of the Bible using his primitive movable type printing press created a cascade of events and subsequently a storm of change in Europe of a momentous proportion ranging from the science revolution, the Renaissance and the Reformation to nationalism, mass education, mass production and the Industrial revolution. McLuhan showed that the Gutenberg Galaxy that he described in his book of the same name was basically a self-organizing system.

A new medium creates a form of positive feedback paralleling Arthurs model of economics and increasing returns. The pattern of organization of a medium that one makes use of becomes a model of how one organizes ones thoughts, ones information and even ones social and economic activities. If the information one receives is in that format then one formulates ones ideas in the terms of that format and when one creates ones output one naturally makes use of that format. It is simply a case of increasing returns as formulated by Brian Arthur. Another parallel to increasing returns is the way a child will speak their language in the same dialect that they hear at home despite being introduced to the standard version of their national language in school.

The human media ecosystem or mediasphere that was the object of McLuhans studies is a self-organizing system. For McLuhan media include all the tools, technologies and communication systems by which human interact with each other and hence mediate their physical, biological, cultural, social and economic environments. The mediasphere of all human tools, technologies and communication systems is unplanned it self-organizes itself and evolves like the biosphere through the interactions of individual inventors and users with their media. The mediasphere evolves in the same Darwinian pattern of descent, modification and selection, as is the case with the evolution of living organisms since every medium, technology or tool is a combination of some combination of prior media, tools and technologies. Like the biosphere the mediasphere has no endpoint it constantly probes the adjacent possible as described by Stuart Kauffman (2000) and like the biosphere its complexity continues to increase.

Just as older forms in the biosphere survive as more complex organisms evolve so too do earlier and simpler forms of communication survive the emergence of more complex forms of communication examples include the spoken word, gestures, hand signals, pencil and paper. Some media do become extinct like the typewriter and the quill pen but re-emerge the way the dinosaur went extinct but evolved into birds. The QWERTY keyboard from the typewriter, for example, survived as the input for computers.

In order to contrast his approach to economics that incorporates complexity and increasing returns with the older neo-classical approach to economics Brian Arthur created the table below that compares his approach with the neo-classical one (Arthurs original table can be found in Waldrop 1992, 37). To illustrate the parallel between McLuhans media ecology approach and Brian Arthurs complex adaptive systems approach to economics we have added to Brian Arthurs table a comparison of McLuhans media ecology approach to media studies with that of the older content analysis approach to media studies. We have done this by adding to Brian Arthurs table a parallel comparison of McLuhans media ecology approach and the older content analysis approach. To read the table below remember that the text above the solid lines relates to the comparison to the old and new (Arthur) economic theories and the text below the solid lines relates to the old and new (McLuhan) media theories.

Old Economics (Neo-classical)___ New Economics (Arthurs approach)__________

Content Analysis

Media Ecology (McLuhans Approach)

Decreasing returns_________Increasing returns________________________Medium independence

The medium is the message

Based on 19th cent. Physics

Based on biology (structure, pattern,

self organization, life cycle)________________

Based on 19th cent. literary theory

Based on ecology, pattern recognition, emergence

People identical

Focus on individual life; people

separate and different_______________________

Recipients of info identical

User is the content

If only there were no external-

Externalities and differences become

ities and all had equal abilities

the driving forces. No Nirvana.

we would reach Nirvana System constantly unfolding__________________

Content unaffected by the mediumThe medium is the message. The mediasphere is constantly unfolding

Elements are quantities and prices Elements are patterns and possibilities__________ Elements are words and contentElements are patterns and possibilities

No real dynamics in the sense The economy is on the edge of time.

everything is at equilibrium

It rushes forward, structures constantly

___________________________coalescing, decaying, changing________________

No dynamics and content

The mediasphere is on the edge of time.

independent of the medium

It rushes forward, structures constantly

coalescing, decaying, changing

Sees subjects as structurally simpleSees subjects as structurally complex__________Sees content as structurally simpleSees content as structurally complex and

and independent of the mediumdependent on the medium

Economics as soft physics

Economics as highly complex science__________Media studies as content analysisMedia studies as a complex ecological study

McLuhans notion that a medium gives rise to a service environment that serves its users needs parallels the notion of niche construction in both the biosphere and the econosphere. As a new technology or medium emerges and creates a new environment or niche it will first be utilized to serve or deliver the content of the medium it is superseding. After some time new forms of content emerge that take advantage of the new features of the new medium as users explore the adjacent possible of the new medium. Automobiles at first were horseless carriages that did little more than what a horse and carriage could do. With time as the service environment of road and service stations emerged the automobile took on many new functions giving rise to expressways, suburbs, drive-in restaurants and banks, and shopping malls.

Complex adaptive systems stay on the edge of chaos, the boundary between a stable static state of affairs and a highly fluid chaotic state of affairs. Living organisms, which must be able to propagate their organization (Kauffman, Logan et. al. 2007) live on this boundary because if they are in the highly ordered region they are too inflexible and cannot adapt or adjust to the inevitable change in their environment and hence they perish. On the other hand they cannot survive in the chaotic region because they would be overwhelmed by the excessive change they would have to deal with and would be unable to preserve their organization.

The adjacent possible sits exactly on the edge of chaos and living organisms probe this membrane between the ordered and chaotic regimes. The same is true in the mediasphere, the technosphere and the econosphere. If a culture or an economy does not remain at the boundary between order and chaos then it will eventually collapse or be taken over by a stronger cultural or economic regime. If it wanders into the chaotic regime it will soon collapse internally. If on the other hand it remains in the ordered regime too long it eventually will be overtaken by another culture or economy because it will not be able to meet the challenge of coping with that rival culture or economy.

Content analysis communication theorists operate in the ordered regime where they assume that the content is unaffected by the change of media. Media ecology operates at the edge of chaos where it is able to navigate the rapidly changing environment created by the emergence of electrically configured information and more recently with digitally configured information.

Evolution ala Darwins simple formula of descent, modification and selection occurs through the exploration of the adjacent possible in the biosphere, econosphere and the mediasphere. In all three spheres the level of complexity increases. In the biosphere there has been a steady increase of complexity from prokaryotes to eukaryotes from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom; from non-vertebrates to vertebrates; from fish to amphibians; to reptiles; to birds; to mammals; to primates; to hominids; to Homo sapiens. In the econosphere complexity increased from hunting and gathering; to agriculture and pastoralism; to industrialization, to the electric information era, to the digital knowledge age. Communication systems in the mediasphere also increased in complexity as they moved from non-verbal mimetic communication; to orality; to manuscript literacy; to alphabetic literacy; to print literacy; to electric media; to digital media. Note that while the complexity of each sphere complexifies and diversifies earlier and simpler forms still survive. They are obsolesced in the sense that they no longer dominate but they do not disappear.

Media, Formal Cause and Emergence

I have argued that McLuhans approach to media ecology foreshadowed emergence and complexity theory. McLuhan never used that terminology but instead characterized his approach as making use of formal cause as derived from Aristotle. The idea of formal cause was a key part of McLuhan approach to studying media. He wrote in a letter to the editor of the journal Commonweal concerning their review of Elizabeth Eisenstein study, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, The Gutenberg Galaxy makes no personal value judgments because it is concerned with formal causality and the study of effects (McLuhan, Marshall and Eric McLuhan 2011[and hereafter referred to as MFC], 92).

In this section I will argue that the concept of formal cause that McLuhan makes use of is closer to the ideas of emergence and complexity theory than they are to Aristotles notion of formal cause as described in Book V of Metaphysics along with the other three causes (material, efficient and final). I will also demonstrate that Aristotles four causes cannot account for emergence and complexity theory. There are some who claim that Aristotle foreshadowed emergence. I will show that if this is the case it is at best a form of weak emergence and only the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, perhaps the weakest form of emergence of all.

To his credit Eric McLuhan has assembled a magnificent collections of essays, three written by his father, Marshall McLuhan, and one by himself in an award-winning book entitled Media and Formal Cause (MFC). Lance Strate in his Foreword to the book writes, Eric McLuhan presents us with a decidedly non-Aristotelian Aristotle, an Aristotle that is consistent with general semantics (MFC, x). In his own introduction to the book Eric writes, While not formally about formal cause, this essay is effectively an anatomy of it and anticipates the discussions that follow (MFC, 3). I agree with the sentiments expressed by Lance and Eric and intend to show that the formal cause that the Marshall and Eric McLuhan make use of is truly non-Aristotelian and is in fact closely linked to emergence and complexity theory.

I am by no means challenging the usefulness, validity or the appropriateness of the way McLuhan makes use of what he calls formal cause, rather I wish to enrich the conversation about formal cause that Eric and Marshall McLuhan have treated us to in MFC by suggesting that the use of formal cause and the meaning it acquires in the four essays and introduction of the book, MFC, are closer to the concept of emergence than to Aristotles original definition of formal cause.

The description of the four causes upon which we will base our discussion come directly from Book V of Aristotles Metaphysics and, as we will see, the notion of formal cause that it encompasses is quite different than what McLuhan identifies as formal cause. Aristotle described his notion of cause as follows:

"Cause" means: (a) in one sense, that as the result of whose presence something comes into beinge.g. the bronze of a statue and the silver of a cup, and the classes which contain these [i.e., thematerial cause]; (b) in another sense, the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain ite.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general is the cause of the octaveand the parts of the formula [i.e., theformal cause]. (c) The source of the first beginning of change or rest; e.g. the man who plans is a cause, and the father is the cause of the child, and in general that which produces is the cause of that which is produced, and that which changes of that which is changed [i.e., theefficient cause]. (d) The same as "end"; i.e. the final cause; e.g., as the "end" of walking is health. For why does a man walk? "To be healthy," we say, and by saying this we consider that we have supplied the cause [thefinal cause]. (e) All those means towards the end which arise at the instigation of something else, as, e.g. fat-reducing, purging, drugs and instruments are causes of health; for they all have the end as their object, although they differ from each other as being some instruments, others actions [i.e., necessary conditions] (Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1989).

For myself I find it puzzling why one would want to consider Aristotles notion of formal cause at all when discussing the reversal of cause and effect and the figure ground interaction that characterizes McLuhans approach to media ecology and his analysis of the effects of media. In fact I wonder why Aristotle is considered at all when discussing causality in our times. I do not mean to be disrespectful. Aristotle was a fine philosopher, a great drama critic, ethicist and rhetorician, not a bad biologist, but his physics was not very good so why bring in his model of causality especially when discussing the effects of media or emergence. I find this to be puzzling. Let me describe some of Aristotles very serious errors in physics. For example, he wrote that if a ball was dropped from the mast of a moving ship the ball would fall behind the mast, i.e. in the direction opposite to the direction in which the ship was moving. If he had actually done the experiment or had someone else climb to the top of the ships mast and drop a ball he would have discovered his error. He did not. He also claimed that for an object to be in motion it required a constant force acting on it. Once again he is tripped up because of a lack of understanding inertia, a concept he might have discovered if he actually observed a ball being dropped from the mast of a moving ship. So why should we trust him to talk about causality when he was less an empiricist and more a rationalist.

In my opinion he and Plato retarded progress in the empirical sciences like physics for 2000 years with their focus on rationalism and their demeaning of empiricism. Aristotle and the mathematicians of his day could not conceive of the concept of zero or a vacuum because they accepted Parmenides argument that non-being could not be, an argument Parmenides made to suggest that nothing changes. Parmenides argued that if A changes into a B, then A would not-be, but since non-being cannot be, A cannot change and therefore nothing changes. This attitude translated into Aristotles claim that nature abhors a vacuum.

In addition to these errors of Aristotle a great deal has happened in our understanding of causality since his time that makes his work on causality obsolete including the following:

The dethroning of Aristotelian physics with the work of Buridan and the introduction of the idea of impetus, a forerunner of inertia, to replace Aristotles notion that motion required a constant force.

The rise of the new physics with Newton and his laws of motion in which one can argue that nature becomes the efficient cause, the laws of nature the formal cause and the elements of nature the material cause. For Newton and other theists the final cause or the purpose of nature was the glory of God. For deists and atheists there is no final cause or purpose and nature is just the way it is. This position is similar to that of todays emergentists, some of whom may be likened to modern day deists. This is how I would characterize my friend, Stuart Kaufman (2010) and the position he articulates in his book, Reinventing the Sacred.

The emergence of the field concept to describe electromagnetic interactions and their associated equations that are non-linear. The field concept is a key notion for McLuhans understanding of the effects of media.

Einsteins formulation of theories of relativity that revealed absolute space and time do not exist and objects create their own space, an idea that McLuhan borrowed directly from Einstein when he asserted that technologies create their own environments.

The formulation of quantum mechanics where causality at the atomic and subatomic level disappears and hence there are no causes formal or otherwise. McLuhan made good use of quantum mechanic to develop his notion of the resonant interval in acoustic space.

The rise of emergence and complexity theory in which the causal relations are non-linear and not the product of an agent. Although emergence and complexity theory are largely post-McLuhan development there were earlier formulations of emergence before and during his lifetime.In light of this we need to question how relevant Aristotles four causes are to todays understanding of science and the social sciences based on emergence and complexity theory. Aristotle's four forms of cause is a left-brain classification scheme without a sense of dynamics.I believe that the way in which McLuhan made use of the notion of formal cause is closer to the notion of emergence than Aristotles formulation of it as the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it {cause}. To support my assertion consider some of the ways in which McLuhan describes formal cause in his three essays in MFC:

formal causality is always the audience (MFC, 10).

the formal cause, or the public itself, is in perceptual flux (MFC, 75).

formal causality reveals itself by its effects (MFC, 77).He also wrote, that art must always start with the effect. This is another way of saying that art must start with formal cause, and a with concern with the audience (MFC, 79).

McLuhan also states that, causes and effects merge simultaneously (MFC, 46) and Now effects merge with causes instantly through speedup (MFC, 28). He also asserted that, When the time is ripe in any process, the effects as ground have preceded the cause as figures (MFC, 43).

Marshall McLuhan wrote to Ashley Montague, I feel compelled to consider causation as following effects. The effects of the telegraph created an environment of information that made the telephone a perfectly natural development (MFC, 4). A new technology creates an environment in which other things come into being. This is a form of emergence a technology creates a niche in which other things develop.

McLuhans reversal of figure and ground is closely related to his reversal of cause and effect. I begin with ground and they begin with figure. I begin with effects and work round to the causes. Just as cause and effect are closely linked, so too are a figure and the ground or the environment in which the figure operates. The interaction between the two is non-linear and although it is causal the final outcome of the interaction of the figure and the ground is unpredictable and in fact never ceases to change or evolve, i.e. there is never a state of equilibrium between a figure and its ground or environment. The figure is transformed by the very ground that it causes to come into being and the dynamic interplay between the figure and its ground is never resolved. The novel properties that arise through this ongoing interaction are emergent in the sense one is unable to predict them ahead of time. The figure/ground relationships that exist between performers who play the role of figure and their audiences who are the ground for their performance are also emergent. McLuhan (MFC, 10) was aware of this when he wrote, My discovery that formal causality is always the audience dawned on me while reading an essay by Arthur Miller on the disappearance of his public: 1949: The Year It Came Apart (New York Magazine, January, 1975).

McLuhan sums up his understanding of formal cause and the role its plays in his exploration of the effects of media in a letter to John Culkin dated June 19, 1975 (MFC, 130).

I realized that the audience is, in all matter of art and expression, the formal cause, e.g., fallen man if the formal cause of the Incarnation, and Platos public is the formal cause of his philosophy. Formal cause is concerned with effects and with structural form, and not with value judgments.

My own approach to the media has been entirely from formal cause. Since formal causes are hidden and environmental, they exert their structural pressure by interval and interface with whatever is in their environmental territory. Formal causes are always hidden whereas the things upon which they act visible.

Eric McLuhan also shares his fathers notion of formal cause: Formal causality in which coming events cast their shadows before them is hugely mysterious it deals with environmental processes, which are not sequential and which therefore baffle any attempt to come to grips with it (MFC, 7). Eric is basically describing emergence, which is also hugely mysterious, non-sequential, all-at-once and baffling. One source of bafflement is that one cannot predict how an emerging system will finally self-organize. Strong emergence also baffles many scientists who are physicalists and believe that all phenomena including life, intelligence and phenomena that many regard as spiritual can be reduced to physics.

None of these implicit definitions of formal cause of Marshall and Eric McLuhan that we have collected and which include the audience, effects before causes and the simultaneity of causes and effects fit with Aristotles definition with formal cause as a form or pattern, but they do suggest emergence. A strong emergent system is a complex system made up of many components that interact with each other through a non-linear dynamics and self-organize into a composite system that has novel properties that none of the components of which it is made possess. Although the interactions that create the emergent system are causal it is still not possible to predict the behavior or properties of the system based on knowledge of the components and their behaviour or to reduce the behaviour or properties of the composite system to those of the components of which it is composed. The emergent system affects the components from which it emerged in what is called downward causation. It is also difficult to separate effects and causes because of the non-linearity of the dynamics as Marshall McLuhan suggested when he talks of effects and causes merging and even of effects preceding causes. McLuhans association of formal causality with figure/ground also suggests the non-linearity of the interactions of the components of an emergent system.

In suggesting the relationship or similarity of formal cause and emergence I am accepting all of the conclusions reached by Eric and Marshall McLuhan but I believe that the emergence connection that I am suggesting provides another dimension to the concept of formal cause that the both Eric and Marshall McLuhan make use of.

Part of my motivation for this synthesis is that I perceive McLuhans reversal of cause and effect and, better yet, his identification of their simultaneity as not strictly Aristotles formal cause but rather the dynamics of an emergent system. I believe the difference between emergence and McLuhans formal cause approach is largely semantic. McLuhan was on to emergence but he did not have the vocabulary for it when he first developed his ideas in the 50s and 60s. McLuhans reversal of cause and effect does not fit naturally into Aristotles notion of formal cause and it most certainly foreshadows emergence.

Associating the reversal of cause and effect or their simultaneity with formal causality implies that Aristotles views on causality are still valid and it is necessary to fit Marshall McLuhans brilliant observation of the reversal and/or simultaneity of cause and effect into an Aristotelian framework. In fact Aristotle comes up short on causality when one considers his errors in physics due to putting rationalism ahead of empiricism as we have referenced above.

After dismissing material, efficient and final cause to explain McLuhans assertion that causation follows effects, Eric McLuhan writes, That left formal cause, which had for many centuries been the subject of debate. No-one was really certain as to what exactly it was a condition that still obtains (MFC, 5). Well, I feel rather certain that the formal cause as employed by McLuhan is nothing other than emergence by another name.

Emergence entails the simultaneity of cause and effect. An emergent system is not created by an agent and hence no efficient cause in the Aristotelian sense as the components of the emergent system self-organize rather than being organized by an agent according to some plan, or form (and hence no formal cause in the Aristotelian sense). Perhaps we can call the process of self-organization as emergent cause as the form of the final system emerges from the non-linear interactions and self-organization of its components. There is no final cause in the Aristotelian sense as there is no agent with a purpose. The purpose of the system is the system itself. The purpose of life, an emergent phenomenon par excellent, is the propagation of life or the propagation of its own organization (Kauffman, Logan et al. 2007). We therefore see that with a self-organizing emergent system that efficient cause, formal cause and final cause collapse as the system creates itself (i.e. it is its own efficient cause) according to its own pattern of self-organization, (i.e. its formal cause) and its only purpose (i.e. its final cause) is to propagate its own organization. Only Aristotles material cause survives. As we see from this argument the connection between Aristotles formal cause and emergence is not very strong whereas the connection between McLuhans reversal of and/or simultaneity of cause and effect and emergence or emergent cause is quite strong.

I have made these observations and proposed these connections to better understand what Marshall McLuhan called formal cause, which I believe is better described and understood as emergent cause. It also connects his work more closely with the ideas of Norbert Weiner and Ludwig Bertalannfy who influenced him and Stuart Kauffman, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Brian Arthur, John Holland and the Santa Fe School.

Is Formal Cause Strictly Restricted to Human Affairs

The purpose of a human culture, defined as patterns for human behavior Geertz (1973, p. 8), is, as is the case with life, the propagation of its organization. Even though the culture encompasses many different individuals there is still no overall agent controlling a culture. A culture like a living organism is an example of a self-organizing emergent system.

Eric McLuhan claims, Our tetrad of laws bring Aristotle up to date; at the same time, it provides an analytic of formal cause, the first ever proposed. Because the tetrad applies exclusively to human utterance and artifacts, it follows that formal cause is uniquely and particularly human. That is, and I believe this to be crucial, absent human agency or intellect there is no formal cause at all (MFC, 123).

Eric McLuhan is suggesting that formal cause is restricted to human activities, a restriction not possessed by emergent systems or by Aristotles use of formal cause in his biological theory. This at first glance this seems to challenge the identification of McLuhans notion of formal cause with strong emergence. If we can extend McLuhans formal cause to non-human circumstances we can retain the isomorphism between emergence and formal causality. Let us for a moment consider biological evolution and the notion that effects can precede causes. McLuhan argued that the effect of the telegraph was the cause of the telephone. In Darwinian terms we can reformulate this observation by suggestion that the telegraph was a Darwinian preadaptation of the telephone. Other examples abound the printing press, as McLuhan pointed out in non-Darwinian terms, was a preadaptation or formal cause of mass production and the assembly line. The computer and the telephone were a preadaptation of the Internet and the Internet a preadaptation of the Web and the Web a preadaptation of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to mention a few. The analogy with biology is very strong. The cooling devices used by insects were the Darwinian preadaptation for flight and the swim bladder in fish that allowed them to adjust the depth to which they could swim were the Darwinian preadaptation of lungs that allowed animals to inhabit the dry land. Here we have in biological evolution effects preceding causes.

Each of the examples from biology are examples of strong emergence and at the same time satisfy McLuhan brand of formal causality in which effects precede causes. And each of the examples from the evolution of technology satisfies Darwins definition of a pre-adaptation. We can extend the analogy even further. A Darwinian preadaptation cannot be prestated (Kauffman, Logan et al. 2007). This is also characteristic of strong emergence where the properties of the emergent system cannot be reduced to, derived from or predicted from the components from which it emerged. The same holds for the evolution of technology. One could not have predicted that the printing press would lead to the assembly line and mass production nor could one at the time of Gutenberg predicted the developments that followed in the wake of his invention such as individualism, vernacular literature, nationalism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation (McLuhan 1962). And as already stated no one predicted the emergence of various Internet applications such as the Web itself, Google, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, NetFlix, Twitter and scores of other Web apps. To conclude I believe that strong emergence is equivalent to the formal cause defined by McLuhan as opposed to the formal cause defined by Aristotle.

Given that media are extensions of their users, it follows that the interactions of the media and their users are non-linear and the co-evolution of the users and their tools are emergent. This idea is sometimes expressed as we shape our tools and our tools shape us (not formulated by McLuhan but used by him and often attributed to him). It is our tools and technology, which makes us human. What distinguishes the genus homo and humans from the non-human apes is the sophistication of our tools and technology. Digital technology does not make us post-human any more than did electricity, mechanical devices, the Mousterian hand axe and the older and more primitive Acheulean hand axe. In fact it was the invention and use of the hand axe that made us human and distinguished us from our ape ancestors.

Strong emergence is the way life came into being and the way weather patterns form and so has been part of the history of our planet from its inception and long before there were humans to identify it. It was not until the electric/digital era that humans became aware of the role strong emergence has played and is playing in the history of the planet and life on the planet. It was only with digitally-configured information, particularly the personal computer that allowed us to become aware of strong emergence, complexity theory and chaos vis--vis the butterfly effect. Strong emergence at first baffled many scientists who found it a hard concept to take on board and there are still holdouts. This parallels the resistance to Marshall McLuhans reversal of cause and effect and figure and ground for the same reasons. The advent of the Internet has loosened up some of the resistance to Marshall McLuhan due to the way in which he foreshadowed and predicted so much of our digital world, but as with emergence there are still holdouts.

Conclusion

Eric McLuhan mentions his fathers interest in the varieties of causality (MFC, 8). Emergence is one such variety of causality. It supersedes Newtonian causality, which has very limited application such as the movement of the planets about the sun in our solar system or the actions of a simple pendulum. Newtonian causality is about connections, which McLuhan dismisses as irrelevant for the electric age: A connection is not a cause but a hang-up the absence of an interest in causation cannot persist in the new age of ecology. Ecology does not seek connections, but patterns (MFC, 8). Ecological systems are non-linear emergent systems that are best described by patterns rather than the detailed behaviour of each of the components of the ecosystem. McLuhan was describing emergence and not formal causality. Referring to his fathers ecological approach as described in the above quote Eric writes: Perhaps its signal contribution to our theme was the discovery that formal cause coincided with groundsituation or environment (MFC, 9). The identification of formal cause with groundsituation or environment is tantamount of identifying it with emergence supporting my notion that formal cause as defined and used by both Marshall and Eric McLuhan is emergence by another name. This reinforces my contention that formal cause and emergence are the flip sides of the same coin. Would formal cause by any other name such as emergence be as effective in describing the reversal of cause and effect or their simultaneity? I think so!

Acknowledgement: I wish to acknowledge that the latter part of this chapter from the section Media, Formal Cause and Emergence onwards was stimulated by the thread Formal Cause Murdered Again on the Media Ecology Association listserv, particularly the post by Eric Jenkins and of course the collection of essays Media and Formal Cause edited by Eric McLuhan