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April 18th, 2009 by Sean Emergence, pt. 2

What is the concept of “emergence”?

First, we create a system based on simple concepts, and simple rules. For example, suppose we have an image. We initialize the image with a random color at each pixel. Then, we randomly choose a pixel, and copy it’s color to a random neighbor. We repeat this process over and over again.

What emerges from these simple rules? It’s actually pretty cool to watch… the image starts to look life-like. At first it’s just random colors everywhere, but soon little pockets of the same color start to emerge. These blobs start small… but over time, they grow and shrink, and move around. They split in half… some die off completely. If the simulation is left to run long enough, sometimes two dominant colors emerge. They battle each other. One color might shrink down to a small section, only to expand again. Eventually, given enough time, one color will take over the entire image.

Why not take a look? I created a simple game where you can see emergence in action.

So what’s the point?

There are a lot of points. The main point is that it exists. Given just some numbers, and some simple rules, unpredictable properties emerge. It’s not a question of “faith” or “opinion” or anything like that. Emergence exists. It’s mathematically proven.

Big deal, numbers simulate stuff… nothing fantastic. What does it mean?

It actually means quite a lot, but it takes some more before we get to that point. The first step is to recognize its existence, and understand that - given a large enough system with some basic rules - things start to happen. And by things I mean life.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Philosophy, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

### 5 Responses to “Emergence, pt. 2”

1. Antisankari Says:
   April 18th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

   Ouch.

   You just “contaminated” a perfectly good test setting

   Now that you described “emergence” as an eventual result from running simulation, what keeps users from unconsciously “willing” such phenomenon to occur? We are dealing with several random throws here after all.

   Does emergence exist because it does, or does our expectancy cause it?

2. DigGil Says:
   April 19th, 2009 at 4:06 pm

   That problem again no! Can’t stand the headache *dies out*.

   What would a robot see? But then when we see what the robot saw it’s like not having the robot… The question that leads from Schroninger’s cat is very annoying.

3. Antisankari Says:
   April 20th, 2009 at 8:21 am

   Blue has won on 2 tries out ouf 2. Must be majic!

4. Raathuus Says:
   April 23rd, 2009 at 3:00 pm

   If I’m right, this is made in JavaScript.

5. Meaux Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   Very interesting, Sean. +1 for Atheism.

   This shows that a simple system can lead to complicated, inpredictable outcome. Colliding atoms lead to complicated molecules, lead to a single celled organism, and the rest we know of.. =)

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