The Emergence of the Emergence Theory
Emergence theory says that more complex systems can naturally emerge from simpler ones through self-organization. Over time, simpler societies can create hierarchies, ownership, law, justice, courts, and democratic elections via evolutionary growth. Similar process happen in the atomic cosmos, life sciences, and (human) consciousness. These processes end the old and create a new. ‘Things’ change and merge with each other in new ways.
In 1942, John Schumpeter used the phrase “creative destruction.” [A deep dive shows he did not have the absolute first use of of the phrase.] When processes spiral upward through evolutionary change a destruction of their current state is replaced by a new state/condition/existence.
When ‘things’ emerge, they merge each to other ‘things’. A ‘thing’ becomes a new ‘thing’. A new thing is “created” and an old thing is “destroyed.”
Artifacts are ‘facts’ that are true in their own existence by the proof of their existence. Even a fake piece of sport memorabilia is a real artifact. When human create objects from the substances they find in their environments, they generate new created things — artifacts. These new objects emerge from their modification/destruction by humans via their efforts, actions, industry, and creative endeavor.
The life sciences lean heavily upon the “theory of evolution” which is mostly attributed to Charles Darwin.
The social sciences need to use ‘emergence theory’ in order to know and understand our human world.
These ‘social emergences’ arise as they do out of seemingly random occurrence. History simplifies these happenings and processes in carefully selected evidence, words, sentences, stories, and arguments, but they cannot fully explain or understand it all. As frequent and seemingly random as air particles bouncing about in a space, so also are the interactions and processes of humans. Out of all this chaos emerges civilization, capitalism, and civic states.
Consciousness emerges from the ‘chaos’ of cognitive circuitry. Creations (artifacts) emerge from the creative hands of humankind. Civilization emerges from conscious choice-making humans interacting ‘randomly’ in civic spaces.
It is time for emergence theory to …emerge as a more directly acknowledged reality of human life, process of history, and social studies ‘law of existence.’
Post script: The dynamism of colliding particles, ideas, experiences, people, and cultures causes new mixes (‘mergings’) — the Syn Thesis — to emerge. Cosmopolitan cities offer it all [‘cosmos’ is all], but better yet they mix elements from their great diverse variety and create “new,” fusions, hybrids, blends, innovations, combinations, -esques, and trends of change. The ‘winds of change’ arise when high and low air pressure areas meet/collide/interact. Dynamism doesn’t operate in a static system.
Let it be known that the term ‘thing"‘ originated from Germanic ‘ping’ — which meant assembly (of people), meeting, and/or time made to have a meeting.