Basically every great and complex work ant colonies are capable of is an emergent property of simple rules that are simple instinct in simple creatures, yet the interplay of lots of individuals following these simple rules begets complex behavior. This is the easiest to grasp example imho.
Flocking birds, schooling fish, hell we can write computer programs where complex behavior emerges from simple rules, Conway’s Game of Life is the best example for how simple the rules can be and how complex the emergent systems.
But emergence is everywhere, the cells of your lungs don’t breathe, but they arrange themselves in a way and are embedded in a system that can exist because lung-cells do arrange the way they do.
Life itself is an emergent property, the atoms that constitute us themselves aren’t alive, they don’t run, breathe or think, all of those are emergent properties from the right collection and arrangement of atoms into molecules into cells into a multicellular organism.
Thinking is no different than running, it is something that happens through the complex interplay of matter but transcends the single building blocks.
A single ant can’t be a colony, a single cell can’t breathe or run and a single neuron can’t think, but if you bring them together in the right amount and arrangement, new properties emerge.
And most importantly, if you disturb that arrangement, if you destroy some of that constituting matter or rearrange it, the emergent properties change or vanish. That it can simply stop to emerge is imho the best prove that it is an emergent property.
Basically every great and complex work ant colonies are capable of is an emergent property of simple rules that are simple instinct in simple creatures, yet the interplay of lots of individuals following these simple rules begets complex behavior. This is the easiest to grasp example imho.
Flocking birds, schooling fish, hell we can write computer programs where complex behavior emerges from simple rules, Conway’s Game of Life is the best example for how simple the rules can be and how complex the emergent systems.
But emergence is everywhere, the cells of your lungs don’t breathe, but they arrange themselves in a way and are embedded in a system that can exist because lung-cells do arrange the way they do.
Life itself is an emergent property, the atoms that constitute us themselves aren’t alive, they don’t run, breathe or think, all of those are emergent properties from the right collection and arrangement of atoms into molecules into cells into a multicellular organism.
Thinking is no different than running, it is something that happens through the complex interplay of matter but transcends the single building blocks.
A single ant can’t be a colony, a single cell can’t breathe or run and a single neuron can’t think, but if you bring them together in the right amount and arrangement, new properties emerge.
And most importantly, if you disturb that arrangement, if you destroy some of that constituting matter or rearrange it, the emergent properties change or vanish. That it can simply stop to emerge is imho the best prove that it is an emergent property.