Emergence

How does 'something' become 'something different'? Not in the mechanical or computable sense where an external agent such as the wind erodes a rock, or a sculptor changes that rock.

But in an organic sense, where we observe an entity in a certain state at a particular time: x(t).

And we wonder what caused it to change to x(t + 1) one hour or one generation later. There seem to be three 'causes'.

Stochastic - which is purely accidental and not computable. This is the answer of many biologists to evolution, with their decision that random changes provide functional new properties. I have a problem with this, because by the time a random change that actually works comes along, the species would be long extinct. I am only comparing my lack of success at winning the lottery.

Deterministic - which is most certainly computable and we then have to consider the Agent of Determination. And the agenda of that Agent.
and
Choice.

(1) Choice can be by the individual alone; it can remain with the individual alone. Such as a rat biting off its tail (we won't discuss why). Such a change remains with that individual alone.

(2) Or, it can refer to the whole but local Set of a particular species (animal or plant) in a particular environmental domain. In this case, for example, the beak of a bird species will enlarge and harden to enable it to deal with a new seed in that domain.

(3) Or, it can refer to the entire non-local Set of organisms, such as all birds.

I think that Choice-2 is the most important biological property. I'd put Choice-3 as relevant to the physico-chemical realm.

Why do I use the term 'choice', a term that usually indicates a reasoning Agent? Because I think that a certain amount of Reasoning is going on. In fact, I consider Nature as a process of Reason, in that its properties and productions are not random but correlated, interactional, productive. These seem, to me, to be acts of Reason rather than non-reason.

I think that biological systems have an 'internal' informational process, a Reasoning Informational process that is held within all members of a species; and, then located within a domain. These informational processes functions as a kind of google search engine, connecting to all the realities in that ecosystem. Connecting to what is going on in that ecosystem.

As such, this internal informatonal system, which I call Strong Anticipation, comes up with hypothetical solutions to environmental concerns. Hypothetical, not actual, so that there is no destabilization of the system. It comes up with a number of such hypotheses. Any one of them would function as a solution.
But, the system itself 'chooses' ONE solution. This can be a random choice but remember, any one of them would function, because the system has 'pre-approved' all of them as informationally relevant in this domain. This then emerges as the new property of the system, and becomes dominant in the real world.

Problems?