What is an Emergence? It is a special interlude of major qualitative change, in which a new level of reality is both generated and maintained. Such a Level is not a mere re-organisation, but involves wholly new entities, properties, relations and even Laws which did not exist previously. The template for such an Emergence has to be the Origin of Life on Earth. Only after the creation of the first living things did they inhabit a new Level of Reality, with its own laws. We call this collection of laws Biology, and institute a whole new science with its own scientists. But this, though without doubt the most important Emergence was certainly not the only one. Every science has had its own birth via an Emergence, and indeed from the Big Bang onwards all significant qualitative changes were created within Emergences, as have been all since that event. As so many of my philosophical ideas revolve around this theory of Emergence, we have decided to publish a special issue of the Shape Journal, dedicated to its explanation and exploration.

Jim Schofield
JULY 2010