I feel like I kind of borked the last paragraph so I want to clarify something.

The point is basically that since these repeating patterns are different every time, they are not emergent. They don't really "exist" except as matter repeating itself in a similar way. Emergence implies there is some kind of different qualitative difference between the emergent level and the lower level but I would argue there isn't.

Sorry for pastebin but it's all I can do atm! Would appreciate your views