Slashdot | Emergence
Terrible review, but very interesting subject. I got in a fairly decent discussion the other night with a friend of mine about this subject, though we did not use the term "emergence". Quick sum up, Emergence is when large behaviors can be seen (for example, an anthill being built) from small individual behavior (each ant feeling like the right way to get in and out of the hole is with a certain basic body movement) rather than some centralized order (the queen ant dictating that an ant hill must be built). Logically, I love this thought and I think it shows up everywhere. In fact, this is exactly the kind of behavior that I think tends to cause traffic, polution and any number of other ills. Of course, it also provides endless gains as well... the Internet and all the resources it provides is a great example of that. If I had one thought, it would just be that people understood that very small behaviors can cause great effects, either for good or for bad.