Brian:
> However, emergence on its own appears useless as a principle of hope.
Good point. Allow me to amplify . . . <g>
"Emergence"was a DoD project. Or, more properly a DoE one. The US Department of Energy (spun-off from DoD to "control" nuclear weapons), established the Mecca of "emergence" at the Santa Fe Institute (across the road from Los Alamos and staffed with bomb designers), to take the techniques of "star design" and apply them to society. The DoE still funds $10M/year to the Institute (about 1/2 its budget.)
And while we're on the subject, the recently established "Cultural Evolution Society" -- devoted to "nudging" whatever emerges -- was initiated at an iARPA workshop at the UofMaryland where they explicitly said that DoD funding would block many participants so they would need Templeton and others to "sheep-dip" the process . . . !!
https://culturalevolutionsociety.org/
"Complexity theory" is a poor substitute for *causality* -- adopted from astro-physics, in which "probability" has replaced any understanding of "why" -- and actually has had *zero* success in the social domain. If you want to deal with "strategy" (which is the business of my Center), then you will have to retrieve causality (and forget "emergence"). Otherwise, there is indeed no "principle of hope."
Judea Pearl, famous for his contributions to AI research (as well as the death of his journalist son), has written an important book titled "The Book of Why?" In it he recounts how we lost "causality" and why we need to get it back -- alas, without answering his own urgent questions (or really understanding *why* all this happened in the first place.)
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Why-Science-Cause-Effect/dp/046509760X
Happy New Year!!
Mark
Jersey City Heights