Reality is not flat. Reality is stratified. It exists and operates on many levels, each of which is governed by structures, processes, and tendencies appropriate to its own level… . the operation of phenomena at one level of reality often gives rise to new entities and operations at higher levels. What emerges above is fully dependent upon that from which it emerged below. But the emergent entities exist and function at higher levels than those elements that give rise to their emergence.

From Christian Smith’s, What Is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up