emergence

http://bactra.org/notebooks/emergent-properties.html
Probably the best definition of emergence

One set of variables, A, emerges from another, B if (1) A is a function of B, i.e., at a higher level of abstraction, and (2) the higher-level variables can be predicted more efficiently than the lower-level ones, where “efficiency of prediction” is defined using information theory.

https://fortelabs.com/blog/meta-skills-macro-laws-and-the-power-of-constraints/
Terrence Deacon proposes an answer in his (grueling, but original) book Incomplete Nature. He argues that there is a problem with how we think about emergent, complex systems (like productivity, consciousness, and life): we imagine each as “more than the sum of its parts.” This has become practically the definition of emergence: life is more than just chemistry; information is more than just bits; consciousness is more than just neurons.

The problem is that trying to define this “something more” sets us up with an impossible metaphysical choice. It forces us to answer the question, “What is added to brains to make them into minds?” If I say “nothing,” I am a reductive materialist, claiming that the very consciousness I use to hold this belief is unreal, an illusion, or an epiphenomenon at most. But if I say “something,” then I am a mystic, and must accept a soul, a spirit, or at the very least, a little homunculus at the controls.

Without diving too deep into this extremely complex debate, Deacon makes a daring argument that helps explain how meta-skills and macro-laws work. He argues that emergent phenomena are not more than the sum of their parts; they are less than the sum of their parts. In other words, emergence is defined by what is not there — by constraints. This seems, in fact, to be the nature of all sorts of things we have trouble explaining through simple causality — they exist primarily in relation to something not there. Purpose refers to a future goal that doesn’t yet exist; Function relates to an external mapping that is likewise immaterial; even Information seems to be distinguishable from noise only by its being “about” something else (its intentionality, in philosophical terms). This could explain why reductionist analyses don’t work in explaining consciousness, or any other emergent phenomenon: what doesn’t exist has no parts. Deconstruct the experience of mind into its components, and you dissolve the very relationships that give rise to it, and are left with nothing.