Ontological Emergence

How can intelligent thought and action emerge from the essentially physical, and become practically efficacious? Here I elucidate the meaning of emergence, and provide criteria for its determination. I explain emergent phenomena as systems of structured networks of relationships with properties quite different from those of their “discrete constituent elements.” Their properties, powers, and modes of operation (a) are not possessed by their constituent elements, and (b) cannot be completely explained by, or reduced to, the properties and causal powers of those elements and their explanatory theoretical framework. They operate systemically in accordance with a causal logic that is particular to the emergent structures, requiring the use of concepts and principles not entirely replaceable by description of the behavior of their constituent elements. The emergent’s systemic properties and causal powers will usually have consequences that can actually determine the behavior of the elements that compose it. I then detail three apparently distinct, though perhaps overlapping, types of emergent phenomena: one which Paul Humphreys calls “fusion emergence”; a second, that might be called transformational emergence; and a third, which might be called structural, relational, or synchronic emergence.