When you combine various elements to create singular links, the resulting unions exhibit emergent properties. These properties spring into existence from the interaction of the underlying components. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Or, the whole demonstrates properties that its parts do not. The components interact in such a way so as to create new properties.
A simple example of emergent properties is the formation of water through the molecular combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Together, they form H2O. You can’t swim in a pool of hydrogen atoms or drink a cool glass of vodka and oxygen atoms, but when you put hydrogen and oxygen together in the right combination, you can throw a bacchanalian pool party. If you remove one hydrogen atom, you have a different substance, hydrogen peroxide, with different properties including the helpful property of sterilizing the scrape on your toe that you got while dancing at your bacchanalian pool party.
Examples of emergent properties abound. When you combine flour, water, yeast and salt, you can create bread, which has delicious properties for sandwich making. Emulsifying oil, egg yolk and lemon juice produces the properties of mayonnaise to spread on your sandwiches. Blending fats and lye produces the properties of soap to clean up the mess you made in the kitchen. Hiring an assistant from a classified ad and sprinkling in a generous helping of wages can create the emerging properties for a clean a kitchen. None of these ingredients individually achieves results – flour, water, lemon juice, lye, the assistant, cash – but when you combine them judiciously in the right proportions, you may find yourself with a full belly and a kitchen sink that’s free of dirty dishes.
Gunpowder is another great example. It is so simple to make that any 8 year-old boy could do it by combining potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur. (As an aside, please don’t tell any 8 year-old boy he can make gunpowder. There is nothing more motivating to an 8 year-old boy than the possibility to blow shit up). I don’t know what you might do with any of those three ingredients individually, aside from maybe using the charcoal to BBQ burgers at your bacchanalian pool party, but when you combine them, you too can blow shit up. Everybody knows, gunpowder explodes, producing rapidly expanding gasses, fire, and heat. Altering the proportion of ingredients can affect its burn rate, from shatteringly combustible to slow and steady like the fuse of a firecracker. Also, combining these three ingredients creates a high level of chemical stability (another emergent property), endowing the gunpowder with a long shelf life.
Gunpowder swayed the course of history. It was indispensable for developing firearms, explosives and military strategy and, over time, it helped tip the balance of power towards armed militias who seized riches, land, and materials, and protected it, enjoying a disproportionate skew of wealth for generations to come. The properties of gunpowder just keep on emerging.
Throughout history many cultures implemented rites of passage to mark the transformation from boyhood to manhood. These rituals, tests, and ceremonies symbolize a young man’s readiness to assume adult responsibilities and roles within their community. Bar Mitzvah in Judaism marks the coming of age of young boys and acceptance of religious responsibilities as adult members of the community. Native American boys set out into the wilderness on solitary vision quests to fast, seek spriritual guidance, and commune with dreams to gain insight into their role within their communities. Some cultures mark the transformation to adulthood by inflicting physical injuries such as bullet-cutting and scarring rituals (Papua New Guinea) and circumcision (the Dawoodi Bohra culture in India and the Maasai tribe in East Africa). The rituals are designed to be painful and traumatic, to remind the boys and their communities that manhood is serious business. They define the moment in the boy’s life when he sheds his childhood and enters adulthood with all its emergent properties.
A woman develops emergent properties when she becomes pregnant. She develops the biological ecosystem to support the growth of another life inside her. And then new properties emerge when the mother gives birth. The baby is literally the property that emerges from her womb.
Rewinding the tape back to inception, lovemaking sparks its own emergent properties. Two lovers undergo transformation from, a) mildly aroused individuals to, b) squirming, sweaty sex-animals in the frothy frenzies of passion. Pre-state to post-state in five minutes flat. The apogee of their movie-dinner-date night is the emerging property of orgasm. And if they’re really in sync, their properties emerge simultaneously.
It is not an overstatement to say, the goal of finding singular links is to find emergent properties. It’s not just about mixing vinegar and baking soda for a volcano in a high school science project. It’s about creating a catalyst for changing one state to another. It’s about sparking transformation.
Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero With 1,000 Faces” describes the Hero’s Journey, which is a pattern found in myths and legends of cultures around the world. Throughout the Journey the Hero travels from one life stage to another, discovering new emergent properties with each stage. At the beginning, the Hero is reluctant to answer a call to adventure, but he meets a mentor who helps him, the Hero, overcome doubt. He leaves the familiar world where he is tested and forced to undergo a trial where he confronts his deepest fears. He experiences the death of his old self, but survives. The trial-and-survival open his eyes to a new awareness and understanding of the world and his place in it. He returns, reborn, carrying new insights and wisdom, gifts to benefit the community where he originated.
You may recognize the Hero’s Journey if you’re a fan of Harry Potter or Star Wars or the tales of King Arthur or Homer’s Odyssey. In folklore, as in life, the ordinary man or woman becomes a hero when that individual perseveres through personal life-trials to make a discovery that can benefit others. The evolution to heroism is the emergent property.
Emergent properties echo the human experience, because they are inextricably tied to the growth and development of the individual.