**🔼 Up:** [[Interconnectedness of All Things]] **⏺️ With:** [[Complexity]] **\#️⃣ Tags:** #Wisdom #LawsOfNature > **🌱 Planted:** Thu 13 March 2025 --- ***Parts come together to reveal new wholes beyond what they are alone.*** ![[Emergence.png]] We've all heard the cliché and perhaps overused saying "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts", which is attributed to Aristotle who also knew this concept as "physis"and what modern complexity science calls emergence. Emergence can be defined as "the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organisation in complex systems"[^1]. So when people hear this saying about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, they likely don't appreciate the depth of it because it doesn't only mean that parts come together to create a pre-defined, larger whole. It means they generate something completely different with properties that couldn't ever be predicted by examining the components in isolation. That is, the brand new emergent whole expresses qualities that weren't at all present within its parts. In ancient wisdom traditions, particularly Taoism, this emergent quality is seen as the natural unfolding of the universe. The Tao that gives rise to the "ten thousand things" is itself beyond division or comprehension. Similarly, and as complexity science has confirmed, the mystic has always known that reality is fundamentally interconnected and the boundaries we perceive between different objects are more conceptual than absolute. Complex systems are always dynamically emerging in a never-ending unfolding process of being (a something, like a part) and becoming (parts integrating and coming together to form new wholes). Because emergence is always taking place and can't be reliably predicted, we don't have any control over it. Instead of resisting emergence, we can instead learn to participate in it and by doing so can influence (though never fully control) the direction of emergence. The recognition of emergence challenges our mechanistic and reductionist parts-based assumptions about reality, as outlined by the [[Separation Paradigm]]. This means that in order for us to understand anything fully, we need to be looking at both the parts individually and the relationships that exist between them. This way of seeing the world reminds us the things that matter most in life—[[Truth, Beauty & Goodness]], love, meaning and connection—can't be broken down into individual parts because if we try to examine them in isolation to see how they work, we lose what makes them special in the first place. # Properties Emergent phenomena can be identified through the following properties [^1]: 1. Radical novelty — there's no way emergent features could've been predicted simply by looking at the individual parts. 2. Coherence or correlation — emergent patterns stay recognisable and stable, maintaining an identity over time. 3. Global or macro level — the pattern appears at a level above the individual parts. 4. Dynamic process — emergence unfolds through evolution and self-organisation, not as pre-determined wholes. 5. Ostensive quality — emergent patterns are recognised through their showing themselves with each manifestation being somewhat unique. # Examples Water is a good example of emergence because H₂O behaves nothing like either hydrogen or oxygen by themselves. Features of water like its wetness, transparency and ability to dissolve other substances emerged from molecular interactions that couldn't have been predicted if hydrogen or oxygen was studied in isolation. Consciousness emerges from complex neural interactions in ways [[The Hard Problem of Consciousness|that can't be explained by studying individual neurons]] . Similarly, our sense of self emerges through a series of complex and dynamic interactions with others [[Self-Concept|where we exist as a self-in-relation rather than a separate self]]. In nature, we can see emergence in so many places. One example is when Starling bird flocks come together (known as murmuration - see video below) and form fluid and dynamic mesmerising patterns that can't be explained by the behaviour of a singe bird. These birds are just flying, self-organising and doing their thing. They have no idea they're creating these beautiful patterns.  # See Also - [[Evolution is an act of courage]] [^1]: [[Emergence as a Construct by Jeffrey Goldstein]]