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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page book review that offers a summation of the major points of Steven Johnson's text Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software (2001). This is a fascinating book that offers its readers insight into the latest paradigm on how the natural world is organized. According to this radical perspective, complex adaptive systems (such as ant colonies-- or large cities) provide examples of complex order emerging from a series of small-scale interactions. No additional sources cited.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khsjem.rtf
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world is organized. According to this radical perspective, complex adaptive systems (such as ant colonies-- or large cities) provide examples of complex order emerging from a series of small-scale interactions.
In short, Johnsons book tells how scientists have shifted their thinking concerning natural systems, moving from concepts that focused on specific design and control to new ideas concerning bottom-up decentralization.
In other words, complex system are not complicated because of a central "authority" telling everything else what to do, but rather because of individual behavior responding to environmental stimuli in
a manner that naturally produces complexity. Johnson defines "emergence" quite simply by saying that this term pertains to movement that proceeds from "low-level rules to high-level sophistication." In
other words, emergent systems do not operate from the "top-down." Rather, as Johnson so concisely puts it, they "get their smarts from below." Human societies are used to thinking of
complex systems as being controlled by a central authority, that is, a top-down system for controlling behavior. Johnson refers to this as the "pacemaker hypothesis." An example of this would
be the idea that the queen ant "controls" the behavior of an ant colony. Biologists now know that this assumption is wrong. The queen ant is, quite literally, kept
in the dark, far underground, and has nothing to do with the foraging and fighting that is part of the colonys existence. A ant colony is made up of thousands
of single ants that all react to the same natural stimuli. The complex behavior that emerges from this situation is not governed by a central authority, but rather works according
to self-organization, adaptability, and evolution. Johnson finds numerous parallels between the emergent systems identifiable in the natural world, such as ant colonies -- he is particularly fond of using slime
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