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If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. One possible graphical view of the principle of emergence as described in Roger Lewin's book about "Complexity - Life at the Edge of Chaos", Figure 10, page 189.Īn emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective.
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Sometimes the term is used in the colloquial meaning of emersion or appearance. In fact, calling a phenomenon emergent is sometimes used in lieu of a more meaningful explanation. It seems impossible to unambiguously decide whether a phenomenon should be considered emergent.įurther, "emergent" is not always a deeply explanatory label even when it is agreed on: the more complex the phenomenon is, the more intricate are the underlying processes, and the less effective the word emergence is alone. There is no scientific consensus about what weak and strong forms of emergence are, or about how much emergence should be relied upon as an explanation in general. Like intelligence in AI,it is a central concept inĬomplex systems yet is hard to define and very controversial. It may, however, be profitable to consider the "emergence" of the texture of the cake as a relatively complex result of the baking process and the mixture of ingredients. Thus, a straightforward phenomenon such as the probability of finding a raisin in a slice of cake growing with the portion-size does not generally require a theory of emergence to explain. At the very lowest level, the phenomenon usually does not exist at all or exists only in trace amounts: it is irreducible. The original term was "categorial novum" coined by Nicolai Hartmann.įor a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. This can be a dynamic process (occurring over time), such as the evolution of the human body over thousands of successive generations or emergence can happen over disparate size scales, such as the interactions between a great number of neurons producing a human brain capable of thought (even though the constituent neurons are not individually capable of thought). This banner appears on articles that are weak and whose contents should be approached with academic cautionĪ termite "cathedral" mound produced by a termite colony: a classic example of emergence.Įmergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. Please help recruit one, or improve this page yourself if you are qualified. This article is in need of attention from a psychologist/academic expert on the subject.