I have been reading a good essay regarding the definition of life and of emergence, "Defining Life, Explaining Emergence" by Claus Emmeche. The article is somewhat technical, but definitely worth reading. I gleaned a couple things from the article. First, there are two types of emergence. The first is known as "deducible/computable" emergence and is the kind where the apparently complex phenomenon that arise from the interactions of simpler phenomemon can be deduced or computed, if you know the rules and enough information about the simpler phenomena. The second, more interesting, type is "observational" emergence. In this type, the phenomenon that appears from the interactions of complex systems cannot be predicted in any way from the lower level phenomenona, but only observed once the system has integrated and the emergent phenomenon has occurred and been seen.
I would posit that intelligence and consciousness are phenomena of the latter type; and that exploration of the possibility of emergent phenomena without an intelligent agent is a principal direction in which creation research should proceed.
