The concept of emergence is controversial to some — for example Eliezer Yudkowski, who favors reductionism, wrote a critique at Less Wrong (see link below). Do reductionists often dismiss emergence?
Ben formalized emergence in his book ‘The Evolving Mind’ as patterns that appear when you put two or more things together that are not there in any of the individual parts.
Book — ‘The Evolving Mind’: http://www.goertzel.org/books/mind/contents.html http://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Futures-General-Evolution-Stu…atfound-20
Eliezer’s post on ‘The Futility of Emergence’ at Less Wrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/
Talking points: EMERGENCE & REDUCTION, CONFUSION REGARDING EMERGENCE, LARGE SCALE NEUROSCIENCE PROJECTS, EMERGENCE AS A WAY OF EXPLAINING AWAY COMPLEXITY, IS CONSCIOUSNESS AN EMERGENT EFFECT? EMERGENCE & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE