Is "emergence" even a useful concept? I personally don't see how it's distinct from simple consequence. Sure, you may not be able to predict certain more distan

Is "emergence" even a useful concept? I personally don't see how it's distinct from simple consequence. Sure, you may not be able to predict certain more distant outcomes of a system from the set of initial conditions, but the immediate next state is always predictable from the present state. It seems "emergence" is not a property of phenomena but merely a statement of our (in)ability to predict them at a distance.