Emergence Explicated

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Emergence is the property of reality that there are important theories---important sets of rules---that are to some degree or in some sense independent of other important theories.

This is yours truly's broad definition of emergence.

It's a bit idiosyncratic, but yours truly thinks it's a useful perspective on emergence.

So yours truly is idiosyncratic---so was Job:

To explicate the broad definition:

1. Actually, it may be that all important theories are emergent theories in the sense of above definition since it may be that all important theories can in principle by some combination of reasoning and empirical means without a rigorous derivation from other important theories although such rigorous derivations are also possible in many cases.

   For example, classical mechanics (AKA Newtonian physics) can be derived rigorously from theory of relativity (which includes general relativity and special relativity) by going to the classical limit. So in one sense, classical mechanics is limit-form special case of theory of relativity.

   But classical mechanics was originally discovered long before the theory of relativity, and so is in a historical and conceptual sense independent of the theory of relativity.

   Without rigorous proof, yours truly will assume all important theories are emergent theories and will usually call them theories and NOT emergent theories. Yours truly tends to call important theories emergent theories when yours truly wishes to emphasize the emergence.

2. A narrow definition of emergence is offered by Wikipedia:
   In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do NOT exhibit such properties.
   ---Wikipedia: Emergence

3. One can now see that broad definition uses the word "emergence" in the sense of emergence from reality, NOT from an underlying system.

   The narrow definition uses he word "emergence" in the opposite sense: emergence from an underlying system.

   In fact, they two definitions seem to yours truly to be different perspectives on nearly the same thing.

   The only emergent theory included in the broad definition and excluded under the narrow definition seems to be the fundamental fundamental physics theory which yours truly calls TOE-Plus---the "Plus" means that TOE-Plus includes things NOT usually included in the theory of everything (TOE), but included in physics---most importantly the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

   We do NOT have TOE-Plus yet, but we might someday, maybe soon, maybe NOT soon.

4. ---QM to classical, physics to DNA, 2nd law, evolution.

5. trivial the both of them.

6. aphorism.

7. Yours truly tends to think of emergent theories as Platonic ideals.

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