A) One is that these emergent phenomena can be understood only as collective behaviors — you need to look at dozens, hundreds, thousands of the contributing elements. These wholes are indeed greater than the sums of their parts.

B) Another is that even when the elements continue to follow the same rules , external considerations can change the outcome. For instance, ice doesn’t form at zero degrees Celsius because the water molecules become stickier. Rather, the kinetic energy of the molecules drops low enough for the repulsive and attractive forces among them to fall into a new, more springy balance.