Emergence is a fundamental element of growth in the natural world. Indeed, it is what distinguishes the natural world from the mechanical world – the world that is constructed. But emergence, in its uncertainty, is a little bit more than simple, one-dimensional, growth.
I will give two examples here which might be helpful in explaining what I mean.
As a singer and musician I find that a helpful way of including the property of uncertainty (that is fundamental to emergence), in our description, is to think of what a song is.
A song consists of words and notes and rhythm/beat all of which can be written on a page. (Constructed, as I said above). However in addition to those words/notes/beats it has an emergent property. That is, it can be sung. And when it is sung, it takes on an entirely different flavour to what is written on the page.
So the whole is the sum of the notes, words and rhythm and the act of singing the song. And it is the act of singing the song that induces in us a feeling. While what is written down in notes and words is certain, and will not change, the singing of the song is uncertain, as it depends on the singer.
(And of course it must not be forgotten that the more emergent act – or art – of singing the song preceded the reductionist writing down of it by thousands of years).
Also, the song can be sung by different singers, in different ways, in different moods, all of which affect the song. And the song is heard by different people. Some will love it and find it uplifting, some will be bored by it, some will be indifferent to it, some will prefer one version over another, or even the same individual may love it one day and hate it the following day.
Or, consider an artist at work.
When we have a blank canvass and we take our brush in our hand, select a colour to put on our first brush stroke we have a general idea of what it’s going to turn out like – but – unless we paint by numbers – we don’t really know.
Our picture emerges from our imagination which is in turn fed by all our experiences, what mood we are in, how we are feeling, etc. When the picture is finished one could say that that’s the end of it.
But maybe not, because the picture might be framed and hung, and (like a song) may have some impact on a viewer that was totally unintended by the person who once held her brush over a palette of paints with a blank canvas in front of her.
When Leonardo da Vinci held his brush in front of the blank canvas to paint the Mona Lisa he probably didn’t know that it would be hung in one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world and be viewed by millions of people, and (reportedly) altering people’s lives in different ways.