Personally, I think it's sufficiently interesting that "emergence" happens and that we have multiple examples of it. I'm not hung up on whether the study of it

Personally, I think it's sufficiently interesting that "emergence" happens and that we have multiple examples of it. I'm not hung up on whether the study of it will lead to new testable predictions (though that would be wonderful). I think in the worst case, it already gives us a vocabulary to explain that some unintuitive or surprising phenomena of a certain category are normal, and that higher-order patterns will occur naturally even from very simple systems. In the worst case, it's merely a word for an abstract pattern we observe all around us. I'd wager the vast majority of laypeople cannot conceive how humans (or life) came to be without some sort of divine intervention. I certainly don't think anyone has the answer to that haha... But having this vocabulary, and "mere knowledge" of the existence of various examples of emergence can replace this incredulity with a more grounded appreciation of the inherent beauty and wonder of nature. I think the concept of emergence is profound in itself, because of how it can shift our perception of our own place in the world.