>Everyone who has taken a class on complex systems is aware of the phenomenon of emergence. Reminds me of some conference (lost the URL) of Robert Laughlin, wh

>Everyone who has taken a class on complex systems is aware of the phenomenon of emergence. Reminds me of some conference (lost the URL) of Robert Laughlin, where he said (if I recall correctly) that rigidity (e.g. of a steel bar) was an emergent property, to which someone in the audience objected that sure enough it should be deducible from quantum mechanics, which he dismissed. That would mean that emergence can occur even in simple systems (regularly packed atoms), and for quite basic properties.