[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# A General, Measurable Definition of Emergence (E = ΔO)

## Details

**Authors** Cabrera D

**Year** 2025

**Publisher** Journal of Systems Thinking 5(1):1-23

**Kind of work** article

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.v25i1.dc6gmde6) 
10.54120/jost.v25i1.dc6gmde6

## In authors' words

### Abstract

Emergence is central to systems science, yet its definition remains fragmented, domain-specific, and often metaphorical. Existing accounts—including weak and strong emergence, interactionist models from complexity science, and physics-based descriptions of phase transitions—do not provide a general mechanistic operator that links structural change to behavioral change in a measurable way. This paper develops a formal, domain-independent definition of emergence grounded in O-Theory, which models system organization (O) through the structural patterns of Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives (DSRP). We define emergence as the change in system behavior resulting from a change in system organization, formalized as E = ΔO. To evaluate this definition empirically, we analyzed the full Congressional Record from January 2019 and January 2020. Organizational structure was quantified using LLM-based DSRP coding, supported by a dedicated reliability study (median test–retest r = .98). Behavioral divergence was measured using Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence. The results show clear structural reorganization (ΔO > 0), substantial behavioral divergence (KL = 0.3487), and a stable dependency between organizational load and behavioral variation across models and years. Together, these findings demonstrate that emergence can be operationalized as a structural–behavioral dependency in real-world cognitive–linguistic data, providing a generalizable, mechanistic, and empirically verifiable account of emergent phenomena.

## Commentary

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

## Questions it bears on

- Q4. [Does this organization (O) exist in reality?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/completeness-reality)
- Q5. [Does the same organization (O) hold across every domain and scale?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/scale-generality)
- Q8. [Do information (I) and organization (O) combine multiplicatively?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/multiplicative-form)
- Q9. [Does the same organization (O) operate above the individual — dyad, team, organization, culture?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/collective-scale)
- Q15. [What is action (B)?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/action)
- Q19. [What is emergence (E)?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/emergence)
- Q26. [Can mental fitness and its mechanisms be measured?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/fitness-measurable)

**How to cite this** Cabrera D (2025). A General, Measurable Definition of Emergence (E = ΔO). Journal of Systems Thinking 5(1):1-23.