Emergence Without the Dichotomy

The weak/strong emergence dichotomy has structured philosophical discussion for two decades, yet multipleindependent programs—in philosophy of physics, contextual emergence, and compatibilism—have converged onthe conclusion that the binary is untenable. The convergence itself remains unexplained. This paper provides anexplanation. We argue that the dichotomy was implicitly anchored to the physics of thermodynamic equilibriumand therefore systematically misfires for the nonequilibrium systems to which emergence is most frequentlyapplied. We document the resulting costs—the Export Problem—in AI research, consciousness studies, and thesocial sciences. We then propose an operational replacement: emergence is the transition of a system’s orderparameter from zero to non-zero through spontaneous symmetry breaking. The mathematical structure of phasetransitions—analyticity near fixed points forces the same normal form regardless of substrate—explains both whyemergence recurs across disciplines and why independent philosophical analyses converge on abandoning thedichotomy. The redefinition dissolves Kim’s causal exclusion argument through Russell–Norton eliminativismand replaces the unanswerable question “Is this emergent?” with the empirical program “What is the orderparameter, where is the critical point, and what dynamics govern the transition?”