ABSTRACT

There are multiple notions of emergence. They have in common the idea that emergent phenomena (properties, patterns, etc.) arise from, or depend for their occurrence on, more basic phenomena. They differ as to the further conditions that phenomena must meet in order to qualify as emergent. Traditional specications stress that, relative to the more basic phenomena from which they arise, emergent phenomena are irreducible, unexplainable, novel, and/ or unpredictable. More recent denitions also point to, and emphasize, alternative features as being constitutive of emergence.