Emergent phenomena

What do we mean by emergent phenomena? In ordinary language it means everything that exists had a precursor, an antecedent, something that gave rise to it. For every effect there was a cause. Following that line becomes a mystery at the heart of science and philosophy and spirituality. Was there ever a ‘first cause’ or something for which there was no cause and has always been present?Upon which basic phenomena can all else be constructed? Up until Albert Einstein, there were certain underlying truths, or constants, taken for granted by nearly everyone including those in the scientific community. Time marched on at a steady rate. Space was a three dimensional structure. Everything ‘emerged’ from those constants or was bound to their constraints. Stars are born and die, planets form, comets light up the sky, and so on but time and space are the bedrock of existence, set in stone.

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