Metaphysical and scientific accounts of emergence: varieties of fundamentality and theoretical completeness

Fundamentality is the central conceptual component of discussions concerning the emergence. Most obviously, contemporary uses of the term "emergence" vary according to their users' views of fundamentality. This chapter provides a general characterization of fundamentality, explaining the challenges faced by the anti-emergentist versions of fundamentalism. It discusses the limitations of one prominent account of ontological fundamentality, physicalism. Although physicalism does not present a viable alternative to emergentism, this does not mean that emergentists can declare victory. Completeness is essential to arguments against the possibility of strongly emergent properties. Three interlocking concepts: causation, completeness, and reality, are not straightforwardly scientific in nature, but are, instead, metaphysical, or at least conceptual. Scientific models are intended to provide guidance with respect to explanations and predictions of emergent properties or to offer possible interventions that would allow control over those properties.