Emergent properties are characteristics or behaviors of a system that arise from the interactions of its individual components, which cannot be predicted by examining the components alone.
These properties are essential for understanding complex systems, such as biological organisms, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Wetness belongs to water but not to a single molecule, consciousness belongs to a brain but not to a neuron, and a traffic jam or a market price belongs to a crowd of drivers or traders rather than to any one of them. The general phenomenon is called 📝Emergence.
Philosophers and scientists distinguish weak emergence, where the property is surprising but could in principle be derived by simulating every interaction, from strong emergence, where the property is held to be irreducible even in principle. Most scientific usage concerns the weak form, which is why computer modeling and agent-based simulation have become central tools for studying it.
Emergent properties mark the limit of 📝Reductionism: taking a system apart explains its pieces but loses what their relationships produce. That limit is the starting point for 📝Systems Thinking, which treats the relationships between parts as the object of study, and for the view of organizations and ecosystems as each a 📝Living System.
Emergent properties headed the outline when 📝Will Cady and I prepared our deck on what 📝One Inc is and why we were building it for the January 2021 📝One Board Meeting.