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The Enigma of Emergence
It’s both totally bizarre and remarkably common
Right about the time we think we’ve cracked Nature’s code, discovered its laws, or can predict what it’s gonna do — Nature reminds us just how little we know. She is both eternal and omnipresent, with endless layers and complexities. Every answer we find only leads to more questions. Take something as simple as rain, for example, which is falling heavily as I write this.
When was the last time you thought about rain? Like, really thought about it. What it is? How it forms? You probably assume we know the answers. Heck, even schoolchildren learn about clouds, evaporation, and precipitation. But dig any deeper than that, and you’ll soon find the answers aren’t quite as straightforward. For instance, rain is water. But what makes water? More specifically, what makes water wet?
Emergence
Emergence is one of those phenomena that’s relatively simple to grasp in a broad sense, but attempting to understand beyond that leads you on quite a curious adventure. Let’s go back to our water example.
As you likely know, water is just a bunch of H2O molecules, which are made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. This is rather elementary knowledge, yet it’s actually pretty bizarre if you think about it. After all, water is wet, but neither…
