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Emergence (biology)
The term emergence refers to the exhibition of novel collective phenomena in some large systems stemming from a complex organization of their many constituent parts.[1] In systems biology and theoretical biology, one topic is emergence in living systems. Often-used examples are termite and bees' nests, made by the cooperative action of multitudes of individuals.
In biology emergent behavior includes such things as locomotion, sexual display, flocking, and conscious experiencing. Emergence is found even in biological subsystems, such as mitochondria and other organelles of living cells.
Emergent properties are viewed by some as novel properties, functions and behaviors, ones not observed in the system's subsystems and their components, and neither explicable nor predictable from even a complete understanding of the components' properties/functions/behaviors considered in isolation. Others take the view that these novel properties are the outcome of interactions between the constituents understandable from microscopic behavior, but more readily envisioned by introduction of novel organizational concepts.
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