Emergence

Emergence refers to the arising of new qualities that cannot be reduced to the properties of the parts. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Examples: consciousness from neurons, life from molecules, water from H₂O. In Hegel: the qualitative leap at the limits of measure is emergence. Quantitative change leads to a qualitative leap (the nodal line of measure relations). Emergence is neither mystical (as if something arose from nothing) nor reductionist (as if the new quality already lay within the parts). It is dialectical: the new quality arises from the self-transcendence of the old at its limit of measure.