Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software [Hardcover]

As Steven Johnson explains with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, an individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get spontaneous intelligence. Starting with the weird behaviour of the semi-colonial organisms we call slime molds, Johnson details the development of increasingly complex and familiar behaviour among simple components: cells, insects and software developers all find their place in greater schemes.

Most game players, alas, live on something close to day-trader time, at least when they're in the middle of a game--thinking more about their next move than their next meal, and usually blissfully oblivious to the 10-or-20-year trajectory of software development. No-one wants to play with a toy that's going to be fun after a few decades of tinkering--the toys have to be engaging now, or kids will find other toys.

Johnson has a knack for explaining complicated and counterintuitive ideas cleverly without stealing the scene. Though we're far from fully understanding how complex behaviour manifests from simple units and rules, our awareness that such emergence is possible is guiding research across disciplines. Readers unfamiliar with the sciences of complexity will find Emergence an excellent starting point, while those who were chaotic before it was cool will appreciate its updates and wider scope. --Rob Lightner

" Mind-expanding...intelligent, witty and tremendously thought-provoking" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"Fascinating and timely" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"A dizzying, dazzling romp through fields as disparate as urban planning, computer game design, neurology and control theory" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A successful and fluent attempt to put complexity theory at the service of cultural criticism" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

"A delight...clever and thought provoking" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

We have only recently begun to recognize it, yet it exists at every level of our lived experience. It is fast becoming clear that our lives revolve around the powers of emergence. An ant colony behaves with an intelligence no particular ant possesses; a brain is conscious although no particular brain cell is; a city develops districts and neighbourhoods no planner could impose. In each case, complex problems are solved by a profusion of relatively simple elements. Order arrives from the bottom up, not top down. Such systems display emergent behaviour: the movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication. Media, technology and cultural critic Steven Johnson ranges from computer games that simulate living ecology to the guild system of 12th-century Florence; from the initial cell division that marks the very beginning of life to software that lets you listen to the sound of your own brain. The connections between these systems are not the links of poetic metaphor. Everywhere the same laws are obeyed, the same swarm logic is at work. Johnson unearths a secret history of decentralized thinking, looking at those like Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels and Alan Turing who contributed to the study of self-organization long before this became a recognized science. But most of all Johnson pursues emergence in the present, investigating the software that will soon allow artificial emergence to transform our media, bringing sweeping cultural and political change in its wake. This compelling and revelatory book is rich with insights into that future. "Emergence" allows us to witness the exhilarating arrival and sudden ascendancy of a potent new idea.

Why do people cluster together in neighbourhoods?
How do Internet communities spring up from nowhere?
Why is a brain conscious even though no single neuron is?
What causes a media frenzy?

The answer, as Steven Johnson's groundbreaking book shows, is emergence: change that occurs from the bottom up. When enough individual elements interact and organise themselves, the result is collective intelligence - even though no one is in charge. It is a phenomenon that exists at every level of experience, and will revolutionise the way we see the world. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Media, technology and cultural critic, Steven Johnson is 'one of the most original voices around' (Village Voice). Aged 32, he is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Webzine FEED and the author of the book INTERFACE CULTURE.