emergent-property-hunting

---
name: emergent-property-hunting
description: Seek properties that emerge from combination (non-additive)
execution: strategy
used-by: combinatorial-creativity
---

# Emergent Property Hunting

Seek properties that emerge from combination (non-additive). Focus specifically on identifying and validating properties that exist in the combination but not in any individual component — the hallmark of genuine creative novelty.

## State Ledger

| Resource | Target | Current | % |
|----------|--------|---------|---|
| web-search | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| web-research | 10 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-overview | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-search | 15 | 0 | 0% |
| paper-research | 8 | 0 | 0% |

## HARD-GATE

Cannot exit strategy until ≥80% of each budget line is consumed OR yield targets are met with justification for remaining budget.

## Available Tactics

| Tactic | Role |
|--------|------|
| combination-mapping | Enumerate combinations to test for emergence |
| emergence-detection | Detect and validate emergent properties |
| blend-construction | Construct blends to test for emergent structure |

## Available SOPs

| SOP | Role |
|-----|------|
| emergent-property-identification | Identify non-additive properties |
| blend-elaboration | Run combinations as mental simulations |
| vital-relation-mapping | Map relations that enable emergence |
| combinatorial-synthesis | Synthesize emergence findings |

## Execution Guidance

1. **Generate Combinations**: Use combination-mapping to produce candidate combinations
2. **Predict Properties**: For each combination, predict what properties should exist if combination is merely additive
3. **Simulate**: Use blend-elaboration to run the combination as a mental simulation
4. **Detect Emergence**: Identify properties that appear in simulation but weren't predicted from additive model
5. **Validate**: Confirm emergent properties are genuine (not just overlooked additive properties)
6. **Characterize**: Describe the mechanism by which emergence occurs (interaction effects, threshold effects, structural effects)
7. **Rank**: Prioritize emergent properties by novelty and utility