Reddit mentions of Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books)

Not really; this is a new area for games (in terms of approaching it with any degree of theory at all). That's one of the reasons why we tackled it at Horseshoe.

In addition to a few sources listed in the Constructing Emergence paper, John Holland's books Hidden Order and Emergence are theoretically useful, but not so much directly (and they're pretty dense). I hit some of this in my game design text, but I'd like to go back and add more to it now!

Consciousness is an information processing algorithm. Like any algorithm, it's substrate neutral and can be implemented in any number of substrates.

There is no distinction between "physical property" and "emergent property." The entire notion of an "emergent property" has been so distorted by philosophers that it's lost all meaning. It doesn't mean that something magically becomes non-physical. Read some Complexity Theory (John Holland is a decent place to start) if you'd like to understand what an "emergent property" actually is.

Again, look into reductionism. Sociology is psychology is biology is chemistry is physics. We just don't have a complete set of bridge laws yet.