Supervenience h

Supervenience, denoted as h, describes a relationship between two sets of properties—say, mental and physical. It means that any change in the underlying physical properties (like brain states) always results in a change in the higher-level properties (like mental states). In other words, mental properties depend on physical ones: if the physical stays the same, the mental can't change; if the mental changes, there must be a change physically. Supervenience captures a dependence without claiming that the higher-level properties are reducible or identical to the lower-level ones—it ensures a systematic link between the two levels.