Emergence is a concept that is gaining traction across a range of scientific and philosophical fields. It’s a way of accounting for complex systems that arise from simple origins. Large scale examples of emergence include biological evolution, which shows us a path from single cell organisms to the unimaginable complexity of the human brain, and the free market economy, which has likewise evolved from simple trading to astonishingly complex interactions.
Emergence gives us a clue about the thinking process. The classic examples above show us that complexity can arise spontaneously from multiple elements. It’s a self-organizing process, and good thinking has a similar characteristic. There’s a sense in which thinking is something we “do” with force and intention. But there’s a much more valuable sense in which thinking is something that we allow to happen. It’s a process of emergence.
Practically, this can require an exercise in patience: giving time for complex organization to emerge from the mass of details with which we begin.