Emergence as a generative process has been known in one form or another since Aristotle, but it’s precise meaning is something that scientists and philosophers extensively debate. Wikipedia defines emergence as the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.  Another definition, from wikipedia’s systems theory page defines emergence as the appearance of novel characteristics exhibited only on the level of the whole ensemble, and not by the parts. While there is considerable debate about the nature of causation in an emergent system, emergent systems can best be described as forming heterarchies, which in systems theory, means that the dominant aspect or element is dependent upon the total situation. This makes sense for emergent systems – since the parts retain their elementary status as the system switches back and forth through emergent levels—leading theorists to think of emergence as involving both downward and upward causation. There are several salient feature of emergence that distinguishes it from both development and evolution.

The G5 Processes

A Emergence process 

The remarkable characteristic of both an emergent process and the last process we will discuss, is that unlike all other processes,  they are negentropic – i.e., in creating more order with less energy required, they produce the opposite result than entropy increasing processes.  In other words, negentropic processes produce order for free! As we shall see later, negentropic systems are inherently synergistic – where one definition of synergy is the order that reduces the energy requirement of a system.

There is no central agent in emergent processes – nor is there any kind of engagement between agents and so there is no sense of elements adapting to each other. Rather, it is as if the because there is no adaptive mechanism between elemental agents, the system itself transmutes. The energy of the parts is in some sense transmitted through the entire system all at once, like a radio wave transmission. At the lower level, the agents act separately and randomly, until the system transmutes, and a patterned-order emerges. This occurs with a net overall decrease in energy requirements for the system, and therefore, the energetic properties of the system can be thought of as the systems’ “basin attractor” toward the new ordered system.