Emergence

Emergence is a concept in systems theory, philosophy, science, and art that, in it's simplest form, can be summarized as sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. However, in it's most complicated forms we find our understanding of reality breaking down as the methods of scientific inquiry and our Heuristics for constructing a coherent world fall apart.

We experience emergent properties and behaviors every day when we turn on the lights, admire the sunrise, or just open our eyes, because these things depend on phenomena like conductivity, beauty, and consciousness.

These are emergent phenomena:

Comlex Systems cannot always be summarized by adding up the characteristics of their components, they exhibit emergent properties or behaviors which their components do not have on their own.

Emergent phenomena present a real challenge to our coherence of our world, because we cannot draw causal lines from the components to the properties or behavior. It's difficult to grapple with interactions which you cannot understand through reductionist cause and effect, so we gloss over it or seek causation where none exists.

Emergent properties and behaviors are incredibly difficult to explain and study. Few experts agree on the words let alone the reality behind the phenomena. The usual reductionist approaches of science don't work, and you quickly end up debating metaphysics.

Philosophers differentiate between "weak" and "strong" emergence. Weak emergence is the idea that properties emerge from very complex systems but they are connected to their components. If we had perfect information we could calculate the weakly emergent property. Strong emergence is the idea that the properties could not be deduced even with perfect information, because it is wholly separate from the lower level components.

With Systems Theory we might surmise that sufficiently complex Self-Organizing Systems are the source of emergent phenomena, and find ourselves analyzing the fractal geometry of snowflakes.

We don't understand emergence, but it matters that we try. Our lack of understanding is at the root of debates in human rights, animal rights, and AI Safety. Having a better understanding of emergence could lead to scientific advancements in Materials Science and healthcare. The benefits are immeasurable.