In the entire known history of the universe, every single solitary case of emergence that we have observed has been a case of weak emergence. Weak emergence occurs when a system’s high level properties are reducible to simpler versions of these properties in the system’s subsystems. So, we are complex lifeforms that weakly emerge from the interactions of simpler lifeforms, the cells our bodies are made from. The evolution of humans started with the simplest form of matter, plasma in the early universe. Through billions of years of evolution, plasma evolved into complex atoms and then into complex organic molecules and finally to us. This evolution was the realization of weak emergence.
Strong Emergence
Strong emergence on the other hand, hypothetically occurs when a system’s high level properties are not reducible to its subsystems’ properties. This form of emergence is mythical in that it has never been observed anywhere at any time, ever. In fact, something mythical like strong emergence, is beyond scientific understanding and beyond the laws of nature. That is, strong emergence is in fact a supernatural phenomena. This hypothetical phenomena has as much observational support as any other supernatural phenomena like fairies or Santa Claus.
Materialism
Astonishingly, despite its irrational supernatural bent, to this day strong emergence continues to be assumed in the upper echelons of academia. If you are a philosophical materialist, as most scientists are, you necessarily assume that awareness (consciousness) strongly emerges from non-aware cells or at least from non-aware particles. Note that proclaiming that awareness “weakly” emerges from non-aware stuff is still strong emergence.
The Law of Emergence
The fact that weak emergence is ubiquitous and that strong emergence is mythical leads to what we could call the Law of Emergence. This law states that all emergence is weak, that every novel emergent phenomena can be explained in terms of its component parts. Since everything physical conforms to this law, (so far at least) this law should be considered to be one of the laws of physics. Materialists then are fine with violating the laws of physics just to maintain their strangely comforting but thoroughly unfounded beliefs.
Perhaps the reason materialists support strong emergence (plead only for awareness we might add) is that the Law of Emergence logically leads to panpsychism. Since awareness itself can’t be an emergent illusion, awareness must be fundamental. Human-level awareness would weakly emerge from cellular awareness and so on and so on all the way down to the fundamental units of matter. This is exactly how every physical property, like action, operates. Your complex arm movements weakly emerge from the simpler movements of your muscle cells and so on and so on.
The choice is yours, you can remain someone who thinks violating the laws of physics is acceptable or you could be rational. You could be a panpsychist.