emergentism.

The view that organized complex systems develop higher-level features with distinctive properties or explanatory roles.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• weak emergentism
• strong emergentism
• emergentism about consciousness

On the page

The novel's emergentism makes the fleet's collective awareness depend on interactions among its ships.

Weak and strong emergentism differ over how far higher-level powers exceed lower-level explanations.

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi literary / speculative. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Directly read: emergent higher-level entities depend on complex lower organization yet exhibit distinct autonomy. Weak and strong emergence differ; weak can be compatible with physicalism, strong can make additional causal claims. Term emergentism used in source. Individual usefulness checked for a distinct speculative-writing function. Original definitions and examples; hypothetical theories and fictional applications are not presented as established findings. No inherent mood or intensity is assigned. Writing functions: collective minds from organized systems, higher-level explanatory properties.