Life Are you an emergent phenomenon? Consider this: At any given
time, some 75 trillion cells are doing their thing in your body. But they are
constantly dying and being replaced by new ones, such that in less than two
years you won't have a single cell you have today. Yet you remain you. How is this possible? Even though each of
your cells contains your entire genome, you would hardly say that any one of
your cells constitutes you. But taken together they amount to
you. Life, says the theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, is indeed an
emergent event.
