A property emerges when it arises at a higher level of organization through the interaction of parts, even though no single part has that property on its own. Weak emergence can in principle be explained in terms of the parts and their rules; strong emergence claims a new property that cannot be reduced in this way. The word “emergence” is therefore a label for something that needs explaining, not automatically the explanation itself.
Source: ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, Sunday, August 23, 2026, 4:17 a.m.