emergence

=**emergence** = The term coined to describe how higher-level properties emerge from systems of lower-level components in such a way that the high-level properties could not be predicted from knowledge of the components in isolation. An example is the pungent smell of the gas ammonia, which is a compound of two odourless gases, nitrogen and hydrogen. The smell of ammonia emerges from the chemical bonding of these two components.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

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