Imagine my shock when today's Chicago Tribune had a big article that mentioned "emergent properties." That was always a fairly abstruse topic in the philosophy of biology - or so I thought. It turns out some scientists have taken that ball and run with it.
'"All of life displays emergent properties," says Utah State University plant biologist Keith Mott. "Even a lot of things that are not life display emergent properties. It means that when you get a bunch of things together they do something that's completely different from what you would expect from all of the individual components."'
It's not that the whole
Gains a mystical soul.
It's just that we're surprised
Once the parts get organized.
(Trib article from Sunday Magazine here, but registration may be required.)
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