I just noticed that the Templeton Foundation has a competition for $5 million in grants in the area of “strong emergence”, submission deadline very soon (April 16). I’m not sure I understand their distinction between “weak emergence” and “strong emergence” (classical phase transitions are weakly emergent, quantum ones strongly emergent), but they seem to intend to support real physics research, and they’re inspired by Philip Anderson’s wonderful paper More is Different. This is a refreshing contrast to some of their other ventures I’ve written about here that tend towards encouraging pseudo-science, so I hope this one is a success and they do more things like it.
Their other current funding opportunity, also with a deadline of April 16, is Breaking New Ground in Science and Religion, which is more the usual kind of thing for them. They don’t give a total number for what they intend to spend in this area, but it appears to be much less than the $5 million going to emergence.
Peter
Thank you for the reference: More is Different. Indeed one of the best papers ever written on the subject.
Don
Thanks for pointing out the Physics of Emergence competition. I’ve just submitted an entry; I thought the submission procedure was very well designed and organized.