Commonsense Conceptions of Emergent Processes: Why Some Misconceptions Are Robust

This article offers a plausible domain-general explanation for why some concepts of processes are resistant to instructional remediation although other, apparently similar concepts are more easily understood. The explanation assumes that processes may differ in ontological ways: that some processes (such as the apparent flow in diffusion of dye in water) are emergent and other processes (such as the flow of blood in human circulation) are direct. Although precise definition of the two kinds of processes are probably impossible, attributes of direct and emergent processes are described that distinguish them in a domain-general way. Circulation and diffusion, which are used as examples of direct and emergent…