On LinkedIn a question appears, "What is emergence?" I reply as follows,
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Let's try a radically pragmatic view. Emergence is an observation: Things
are more than the sum of their parts. This observation points to questions:
What are the parts? How do they fit together? How do they interact? With
what consequences? What emergence is not is a thing. If it were, we would
have to ask and answer these same questions about it. Emergence is, in
other usage, what the late, great Dan Foss labeled a "thingie," a made-up,
fictional thing that we point to when we don't understand the thing we are
studying. It is logically and scientifically phlogiston or, theologically
speaking, God, the unknown to which we refer when other explanations fail.
Note 1: The view that emergence is an observation that entails the
questions listed above retains everything good about system thinking,
without metaphysical distractions.
Note 2: A work of art, an engine, a living organism, and an industry all
display emergent properties. They are more than the sum of their parts. But
if we look at these different sorts of things, the parts and how they fit
and interact together are different. "Emergence" adds nothing to the
explanations required.
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John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
