Abstract

Despite its long history, there is no agreed-upon conception of emergence. One might claim that a common idea of emergence seems to be that something termed a "system" gives rise to, or possesses, characteristics termed "properties," which latter are absent or unmanifested in whatever individual components the system consists and are thus "emergent" from the system itself. However, types of systems discussed run a gamut from purely mental entities to simple tools . "Properties" is similarly unconstrained . The so-called special sciences, such as biology, psychology, sociology, and even chemistry have all claimed some properties as emergent. However, the enormous literature dealing with various types of systems characterized as emergent can be divided, roughly speaking, into two classes of descriptions of emergence. One might be termed "structural" and the other "functional." The first characterizes emergent systems in terms of their components and their interrelationships , while the second characterizes them in terms of their effects on other systems or elements . There is generally no mention of possible internal structures of the system in the latter, and if there is, it is in vague and/or abstract terms, while the former emphasizes internal structures over clear characterizations of the effects of emergence. Thus, a conception of emergence like Kim's is functional, while explicit descriptions of small-world networks, chaotic systems, or other types of complex internal organizations in mathematics, physics, and computer science are structural. The structuralfunctional distinction will play a part in the analysis of emergence later in this paper