Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Scribner (2002), Edition: Reprint, 288 pages
Description
Emergence is what happens when an interconnected system of relatively simple elements self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behavior. It's a bottom-up model rather than being engineered by a general or a master planner, emergence begins at the ground level. Systems that at first glance seem vastly different--ant colonies, human brains, cities, immune systems--all turn out to follow the rules of emergence. In each of these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies a scale above them: ants create colonies, urbanites create neighborhoods. Author Steven Johnson takes readers on an eye-opening intellectual journey from the discovery of emergence to its applications. He introduces us to our everyday surroundings, offering surprising examples of feedback, self-organization, and adaptive learning. Drawing upon evolutionary theory, urban studies, neuroscience, and computer games, Emergence is a guidebook to one of the key components of twenty-first-century culture. Until recently, Johnson explains, the disparate philosophers of emergence have worked to interpret the world. But today they are starting to change it. This book is the riveting story of that change and what it means for the future.… (more)
Media reviews
New York Times
This book does not convincingly illustrate the magnitude of change Mr. Johnson attributes to the self-organization principle; he predicts that it will usher in a revolution ''every bit as significant'' as the one unleashed by our harnessing of electricity. But ''Emergence'' does limn some of its
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burgeoning manifestations. And in doing so, it not only makes stimulating reading but also goads us to appreciate the process whereby the parts often add up to more than the whole. Show Less
American Scholar
Johnson senses that ideas about self-organization and complexity are poised to break out from the world of science into our culture at large, and challenge the primacy of mechanistic and hierarchical models in our thinking about nature, society, and even art.
Publishers Weekly
The wide scope of the book may leave some readers wanting greater detail, but it does an excellent job of putting the Web into historical and biological context, with no dot.com diminishment.
Booklist
A lively snapshot of current trends.
User reviews
LibraryThing member wlmckee
I came across this book while browsing the stacks at my local library. Although written in 10 years ago, I found the concepts to be relevant still today. The author covered a wide range of topics from ants to city planning to game theory to music through which he wove the ideas of emergent
Of particular interest was the end of the book about consciousness. I was not familiar with the other minds theory of consciousness which essentially suggests that our ability to consider how a situation appears to another led to our self-awareness. The study with 3 and 4 year olds that drove this point home was particularly interesting as it underscores how the mind develops and becomes self-aware.
As a Web developer, I began to wonder if the Web could become emergent. I came to the conclusion that it's not possible in its current state. It needs more structure and is inherently disorganized due to its architecture. According to Johnson, the key missing ingredient is feedback- no web page knows what other pages are pointing to it without effort. All connections are one-way. I suspect this lack of two-way connections is why Google, and search engines in general, are so dominant. We literally could not effectively use the information on the Web without these tools today.
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behavior, negative feedback, distributed intelligence, patterns and rules. It was a fun and worthwhile read about topics that I find fascinating.Of particular interest was the end of the book about consciousness. I was not familiar with the other minds theory of consciousness which essentially suggests that our ability to consider how a situation appears to another led to our self-awareness. The study with 3 and 4 year olds that drove this point home was particularly interesting as it underscores how the mind develops and becomes self-aware.
As a Web developer, I began to wonder if the Web could become emergent. I came to the conclusion that it's not possible in its current state. It needs more structure and is inherently disorganized due to its architecture. According to Johnson, the key missing ingredient is feedback- no web page knows what other pages are pointing to it without effort. All connections are one-way. I suspect this lack of two-way connections is why Google, and search engines in general, are so dominant. We literally could not effectively use the information on the Web without these tools today.
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LibraryThing member Steve55
This is an excellent thought provoking book that I thoroughly enjoyed, and provides a good introduction to the topic of emergence dealing with the bottom-up creation of intelligent behaviour from lower level less intelligent behaviour.
This is perfectly illustrated by the example of harvester ants
Interesting though the behaviour of ants is, the book goes on to cite many other examples much closer to home, not the least of these is the creation of cities which is shown to parallel this emergent approach.
The book explores how our mindset makes it difficult to see and accept the creation of complex intelligent behaviour in this emergent way. Our thinking tends to look for a top-down leader driven explanation, the bird in the flock that sets the direction, rather than each bird in the flock following a simple set of rules with the flock behaviour emerging as a consequence.
For me the book provided real insights into the prevalence of emergent systems and points to computer games such as Sim City which allow us to glimpse the creation and operation of emergent worlds.
Whilst the book roams across a broad canvass discussing the behaviours of cities, ants, slime mould, software, the internet and politics as emergent systems, it does not focus specifically on business organisations. However to the discerning reader the profound importance of the message of emergence and its implications will resonate in every business.
This is an excellent and stimulating read that introduces the principles of emergence and may change the way you look at how a host of systems operate including those involved in business operation and business change.
This is perfectly illustrated by the example of harvester ants
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whose colonies exhibit intelligence and learning that no individual ant possesses. The complexity of the colony and its structure is constructed by the behaviours of ants whose vocabulary extends to only ten discrete actions. In a real sense the ants do not consciously create the colony but it is created through the interactions between the ants. There is no helicopter view of the colony held by any ant, no master plan, yet the colony is created. It emerges from the lower level actions of the ants.Interesting though the behaviour of ants is, the book goes on to cite many other examples much closer to home, not the least of these is the creation of cities which is shown to parallel this emergent approach.
The book explores how our mindset makes it difficult to see and accept the creation of complex intelligent behaviour in this emergent way. Our thinking tends to look for a top-down leader driven explanation, the bird in the flock that sets the direction, rather than each bird in the flock following a simple set of rules with the flock behaviour emerging as a consequence.
For me the book provided real insights into the prevalence of emergent systems and points to computer games such as Sim City which allow us to glimpse the creation and operation of emergent worlds.
Whilst the book roams across a broad canvass discussing the behaviours of cities, ants, slime mould, software, the internet and politics as emergent systems, it does not focus specifically on business organisations. However to the discerning reader the profound importance of the message of emergence and its implications will resonate in every business.
This is an excellent and stimulating read that introduces the principles of emergence and may change the way you look at how a host of systems operate including those involved in business operation and business change.
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LibraryThing member hotchk155
This is really fascinating stuff, and the kind of thing I have been dipping into for a while. Though I found this book a little bit shakey to start with, it soon picks up the page-turning momentum of a good thriller.
Steven Johnson takes us on a journey through self-organising systems as different
This book shows a very different viewpoint to the way things really work. The emergent behaviours of societies and social networks is particularly interesting, and is demonstrated very well with examples taken from the internet, such as slashdot and eBay.
In common with chaos theory and quantum mechanics, the science of emergent systems shows that the more we discover and understand the rules and mechanisms behind the universe, the less we are actually able to predict what will happen. The world will alway be able to suprise us - I actually find that quite heartening!
Steven Johnson takes us on a journey through self-organising systems as different
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as slime moulds, businesses in medieval Florence and eBay. The unexpected emergent behaviour of systems based on simple rules is a bizarre and fascinating subject (at least to me). Emergent effects, ranging from traffic jams to human consciousness itself, affect us in all aspects of our lives. This book shows a very different viewpoint to the way things really work. The emergent behaviours of societies and social networks is particularly interesting, and is demonstrated very well with examples taken from the internet, such as slashdot and eBay.
In common with chaos theory and quantum mechanics, the science of emergent systems shows that the more we discover and understand the rules and mechanisms behind the universe, the less we are actually able to predict what will happen. The world will alway be able to suprise us - I actually find that quite heartening!
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LibraryThing member PLReader
An interesting discussion of community relationships. The idea of bottom up emergence was intriguing. The best part of the book to me was the discussion of software evolution.
LibraryThing member dvf1976
I borrowed this book from the UNC library along with 'No Logo' and 'Success of Open Source'.
I had worked my way through those two books, but ignored this one.
Eventually, I decided if I checked this book out, I should make an attempt to read it.
I was done with it in a couple of sittings.
A
I had worked my way through those two books, but ignored this one.
Eventually, I decided if I checked this book out, I should make an attempt to read it.
I was done with it in a couple of sittings.
A
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pretty good read. Show Less
LibraryThing member martinsellingzoe
Steven Johnson is an excellent pop culture / business writer. Emergence is up to the high standard set by his Everything Bad Is Good For you. Everything will be easier to digest for most. Everything deals with readily accessible pop culture. Johnson's fascinating thesis in Everything is we are
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smarter due to pop culture. Emergence is more remote concentrating on history of emergence theory in ants and bees. Johnson builds a bridge between our most massive emergent system, the web, and nature. His foundation is solid, but he demurs at the last moment for some good reasons. Turns out there are differences between nature's emergent systems and the web. As a "thought experiment" this book helps see and think of web movement differently. Johnson's abstract comparison between biological and technical systems is what makes Emergence fascinating and layered. I am working notes into a database and it is taking several days. Show Less
LibraryThing member ScentTrail
Steven Johnson is an excellent pop culture / business writer. Emergence is up to the high standard set by his Everything Bad Is Good For you. Everything will be easier to digest for most. Everything deals with readily accessible pop culture. Johnson's fascinating thesis in Everything is we are
Show More
smarter due to pop culture. Emergence is more remote concentrating on history of emergence theory in ants and bees. Johnson builds a bridge between our most massive emergent system, the web, and nature. His foundation is solid, but he demurs at the last moment for some good reasons. Turns out there are differences between nature's emergent systems and the web. As a "thought experiment" this book helps see and think of web movement differently. Johnson's abstract comparison between biological and technical systems is what makes Emergence fascinating and layered. I am working notes into a database and it is taking several days. Show Less
LibraryThing member mjgrogan
As of late, “Emergence” seems to be the hottest buzz word tossed around the crit spaces and seminar rooms of my chosen discipline. Thus it was important that I finally read something about just what the hell the term means. As usual, the unflagging Johnson never fails to enthrall. Who can deny
Alas, this book seems to shore up my preconceived opinion that “emergence” will have little more than a tenuous relationship with some student’s “architecture” project for a Museum of Humanism in a previously Iron Curtainized locale. It’ll merely be used as one of those dialogic Red Herrings that make me look like the ass when I point out that the project lacks stairs… and walls. I suppose those things will emerge later on.
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the power of such observations as, “in the case of the Middle Ages, we can safely say that the early village residents shat themselves into full-fledged towns.”? He occasionally descends into the hackneyed territory of predictive cyber-nerd-speak, but he quickly segues into something else in his quest to uncover a consilience among ants, brains, Jane Jacobs, and the World Wide Web (apparently not invented by Albert Gore, but one Tim Berners-Lee. Coincidentally I voted for Tim in 2000).Alas, this book seems to shore up my preconceived opinion that “emergence” will have little more than a tenuous relationship with some student’s “architecture” project for a Museum of Humanism in a previously Iron Curtainized locale. It’ll merely be used as one of those dialogic Red Herrings that make me look like the ass when I point out that the project lacks stairs… and walls. I suppose those things will emerge later on.
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LibraryThing member electricvino
Excellent. Like having your view of the world shifted.
LibraryThing member ThomasK
'Emergence' is certainly a good primer to the topic, written in a quite accessible style. Unfortunately, Steven Johnson describes at length ant behavior and city development (among many other processes), but he generally fails to give necessary insight into possible underlying mechanisms.
LibraryThing member bouillabaisse
thought provoking read on self-organzing behaviors & the "bottom-up" revolution going on theories of how we connect. interesting to note that he wrote this after moving to greenwich village and then reading jane jacobs' "the death & life of great american cities" parallel w/ reading about brains. i
tags: self-organizing behavior, swarm logic, clustering, feedback loops, pattern recognition, emergent software, ordered randomness, jane jacobs, theory of minds, bottom-up revolution (8.20.09)
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love his magpie mind that can combine stuff on ant colonies, sidewalk culture, neuroscience, recommendation software of amazon, and social networks. "Cities bring minds together and put them into coherent slots." tags: self-organizing behavior, swarm logic, clustering, feedback loops, pattern recognition, emergent software, ordered randomness, jane jacobs, theory of minds, bottom-up revolution (8.20.09)
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LibraryThing member craigim
I find the concept of emergence, where simple sets of rules applied to large-scale systems can result in complex high-order organization, the most famous being an ant colony, where simple pheromone signals feed back on themselves to create what appears to be a well organized whole. I was expecting
All in all not a bad book, but not quite what I was expecting or looking for.
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something a bit more technical, like a popular account of the current state of research, but he spent a lot more time talking about emergence in general and where it shows up in our lives and in the world around us. I did find the last couple chapters very fascinating, though, where he talked about emergence in the online community. As I was reading it (in July 2010), there were several things he talked about as possibilities that are now taken for granted, like what would become Google's search ranking algorithms, Netflix's movie suggestions and direct streaming, social networking, and other crowd-sourcing sites. About halfway through the chapter I looked at the publication date because of this and was pretty shocked to see that it was 9 years old.All in all not a bad book, but not quite what I was expecting or looking for.
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LibraryThing member jddunn
This is incredibly engaging and interesting, and is confirming ideas about which I already had some inklings about the general outlines of. I think that emergence may well shape up to be the defining idea of the next few decades. It seems to have its tentacles in a lot of different and disparate
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fields and problems, at any rate. I want to know more, though this is an excellent starting point. Show Less
LibraryThing member tlockney
It's been quite a while since I read this, and I should probably queue it up for a re-read. But at the time I read it, it opened my mind to a lot of ideas that I was ready for, but hadn't quite known how to put together. It might even seem quaint and dated now, but this book, along with a few
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others like GEB, really put me on the track of investigations and readings I've been pursuing ever since. It was one of those books that I read and then closely scanned the bibliography to find out what else I should read. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Show Less
LibraryThing member mimelda
In the preface, I defined emergence as simply as possible: order arising out of chaos. A more nuanced definition is higher-order complexity arising out of chaos in which novel, coherent structures coalesce through interactions among the diverse entities of a system. Emergence occurs when these
Emergence produces novel systems—coherent interactions among entities following basic principles. In his bestseller Emergence, science writer Steven Johnson puts it this way: “Agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies one scale above them: ants create colonies; urbanites create neighborhoods; simple pattern-recognition software learns how to recommend new books.”1 Emergence in human systems has produced new technologies, towns, democracy, and some would say consciousness—the capacity for self-reflection.
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interactions disrupt, causing the system to differentiate and ultimately coalesce into something novel.Key elements of this definition are chaos and novelty. Chaos is random interactions among different entities in a given context. Think of people at a cocktail party. Chaos contains no clear patterns or rules of interaction. Make that a cocktail party in which no single culture prevails, so that no one is sure how close to stand to others, whether to make eye contact, or whether to use first or last names. Emergent order arises when a novel, more complex system forms. It often happens in an unexpected, almost magical leap. The cocktail party is actually a surprise party, and everyone knows where to hide and when to sing “Happy Birthday.”Emergence produces novel systems—coherent interactions among entities following basic principles. In his bestseller Emergence, science writer Steven Johnson puts it this way: “Agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies one scale above them: ants create colonies; urbanites create neighborhoods; simple pattern-recognition software learns how to recommend new books.”1 Emergence in human systems has produced new technologies, towns, democracy, and some would say consciousness—the capacity for self-reflection.
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Awards
Village Voice Favorite Books (2001)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2001-09
Physical description
8.44 inches
ISBN
0684868768 / 9780684868769