I read this about a year ago and purchased a copy for my girl friend. Very interesting and insightful perspective on life and organization.

For those with a technical interest in the matter, this is a nice soft intro to the topics with which concerned. It is written with a somewhat emotional style; probably not an ideal technical resource.

For the readers not akin to the concepts at all, the book successfully conveys a nice (and vitally important) way of interpreting natural phenomena (that of self-organisation, collective intelligence, etc.), but, through its somewhat emotional style, may create a sort of hype around the concept.

A pleasant and fast read, over-all; worth it.

The property of "emergence" is essentially the top-level or macro-level view of the behavior or intelligence of a system. The system can be an ant colony, the Internet, a nation, or any collection of individual agents or actors.

To take one example, an ant colony, can be studied in terms of the individual intelligence and actions and behavior of the individual ants in the colony. This is the micro-view.

However, collectively, the ants function together in a system (i.e., the colony). Thus, the colony can also be studied in terms of its behavior, intelligence and actions. This is the macro-view. This is the systems view. Emergent properties are the top level properties that "emerge" from the properties, functions, behavior and actions of the individual units in the system (i.e., the individual ants).

Emergence is a very important concept, especially in terms of group behavior, the world wide web and the Internet, as well as in artifical intelligence and biological and ecological systems. Emergence is also a very important concept in "swarm intelligence" and "hive" type intelligence. These are important concepts for computer science, among many other fields.

Thus the importance of this book which elucidates the concept of "emergence" by describing it in the context of several different areas of study in which it appears.

I saw Steven Johnson's lively and a compellingly fascinating presentation on the topic of the book at a conference, which inspired my desire to read his book.


Unfortunately, the 250+ pages of the book provide very little insight beyond a 30+ minute presentation. The writing style is not forceful or engaging, but rather dull and lifeless. The lasting feeling is that the author is attempting to make the book accessible to a group of smart 10 year olds by using short sentences, simple vocabulary and endlessly repeating the same ideas over and over again.

The initial excitement wears off after about first 50 pages and the impetus to try to read it would help you stumble through the drudgery of another 50 pages, but except to give up sometime soon afterwards.

I purchased this book on something of a whim; it was listed as recommended by Amazon and looked like something worth checking out. This is appropriate because software systems that make recommendations based on history and feedback are one of the topics that get discussed in this book. The concept appealed to me for a number of reasons. First, it seemed like a fascinating study of complex systems and the relationship therein between the components, the system as a whole, and that which may be greater then the sum of its parts - that which is emergent. Which in fact, for a while it was. Second, I appreciate the idea that a city is a complex system that is not dissimilar to other complex systems. And third, I felt like taking a chance on something that just sounded interesting. Sadly, after high expectations brought on by a well developed first half, this book ultimately disappoints.

Credit where credit is due, this book starts off as well as a book can. In keeping with the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, there is a wonderful illustration at the start of this book featuring a map of Hamburg dated circa 1850 next to a diagram of a human brain. Whether there is ultimately anything to them or not, the similarities are astounding. It really went a long way towards grabbing my attention and making this book one that I looked forward to reading. For half of the book, my expectations were met.

The first three chapters take the seemingly mundane and unrelated topics of ant colonies, computer programs based on slime mold observations, and city layout, and make an effective comparison. Something I really liked early on about this book was its observation that both ant colonies and cities expand with an order that suggests a central plan, when in fact the main force behind their development is the elemental units just doing the things that they do. Soldier and worker ands don't do their jobs because the queen orders them to, they do them because taking care of the queen keeps the colony alive, thus sustaining their existence. Neighborhoods don't spring up because someone issues a decree to build homes, they spring up because people have wants and needs regarding where they live. And their existence in a certain place creates a continuing cycle, almost fractal in nature, of more people with their own set of wants and needs. The concept of evolution is also thrown in, and quite effectively.

I think that the strongest point the book makes is that cities are not just clusters of people, they are patterns in time. Human beings wired the way they are seem predestined to create printing presses, newspapers, radios, communications networks, TV's, and internets. But here lies the problem with this book. This is potentially a great point, and I would argue a correct one. It's just that it comes along right at about the halfway point in the book. And after that there not much else other than words. The first half of this book does what the first half of a book should do, it develops an idea. But the development of an idea needs to lead to some sort of conclusion that contains some sense of resolution. Unfortunately, somewhere shortly after the start of chapter 4, this book lets go of all of the cohesion it so nicely developed and spins into seemingly endless and tired commentary about video games and the web. Moreover, the commentary is not very good, and becomes repetitive. By the last couple of chapters it becomes quite clear the only thing concluded will be that the author thinks that in a few more years something really significant is going to come about from recent technological changes. They always do. That in and of itself is not worth very much. In the author's defense, I did read this book in 2007 and it was written in 2000. But still, a book should say considerably more this one does.

If the second half were as good as the first, this book could have been ground-breaking. I appreciate the first half, so I don't consider it a complete waste. However be prepared for quite a let down - 2 stars.

This is a pretty good read - it moves quickly and doesn't get you bogged down in the dna of the concept of emergence. go to wikipedia, read it. then pick up a copy of this and it will provide more context and usefulness. while this may not be the 'grand slam' of books...and to some degree it may be viewed as a popular fad topic...this book is better written than many that end up in the waste bend after page 47. if highlighter markings and cryptic notes in the margin are an indicator for me then it is safe to say that i got my money's worth...and...it contributed to my ongoing pondering of this and many other esoteric terms from the science realm.

This book is well written and provides an insight to the science of emerergence and how it can help exlain the fundamental texture of everything from ant colonies to cafe-society. It is one of those rare books that readers will benefit from reading many times. For those with a scientific appreciation it fully satisfies while those readers with a more cultural focus will still find it very readable.

The subject matter is highly important and may help create models of better societies in the economically and environmentally challenging years ahead. This book undoubtedly helps us to see a way.

This book is well written and provides an insight to the science of emerergence and how it can help exlain the fundamental texture of everything from ant colonies to cafe-society. It is one of those rare books that readers will benefit from reading many times. For those with a scientific appreciation it fully satisfies while those readers with a more cultural focus will still find it very readable.

The subject matter is highly important and may help create models of better societies in the economically and environmentally challenging years ahead. This book undoubtedly helps us to see a way.

Uncommon insights into the origin and development of important things. The author shows us how there are lessons all around us if we are clever enough to be watching when they reveal themselves! Shows us that there are patterns in nature and in the human experience that, when uncovered and examined, can prove to be templates for success in our lives.

I liked this book. It provides a decent overview of emergent properties in general, and particularly the notion of "intelligence" as an emergent property (e.g., one ant is dumb, many ants togther are smart).

However, this book will disappoint any reader who expects a rigorous or mathematical explanation of these phenomena. All of the various anecdotes are interesting, but they appear held together by only their loose similarity of concept (i.e., they all somehow or other manifest this notion "emergence").

Although this book reads like a collection of similarly themed magazine articles, this is part and parcel with its appeal. Although it may have skimped on the "research" into the fascinating field of emergent properties, it was nevertheless well-written, readable, and interesting.

Although the notion of "Emergent Intelligence" has already been siezed upon by popular culture (e.g., Matrix, video games, internet, and on and on), the diversity and importance of this topic is far from its peak. Therefore, the more people with an understanding of it the better -- even if that understanding falls somewhere short of the Ph.d. level

I liked this book. It provides a decent overview of emergent properties in general, and particularly the notion of "intelligence" as an emergent property (e.g., one ant is dumb, many ants togther are smart).

However, this book will disappoint any reader who expects a rigorous or mathematical explanation of these phenomena. All of the various anecdotes are interesting, but they appear held together by only their loose similarity of concept (i.e., they all somehow or other manifest this notion "emergence").

Although this book reads like a collection of similarly themed magazine articles, this is part and parcel with its appeal. Although it may have skimped on the "research" into the fascinating field of emergent properties, it was nevertheless well-written, readable, and interesting.

Although the notion of "Emergent Intelligence" has already been siezed upon by popular culture (e.g., Matrix, video games, internet, and on and on), the diversity and importance of this topic is far from its peak. Therefore, the more people with an understanding of it the better -- even if that understanding falls somewhere short of the Ph.d. level

I was stunned to see so many critical reviews of this book here. Even more stunned by the criticisms. This is not a scientific treatise, and never pretends to be. This is not an introduction into the more abstract and obscure aspects of Emergence, nor is it a dry and tedious mathematical paper.

This is an interesting, graspable, exciting and intelligently written book about a phenomenon which is absolutely, positively crucial to understand. To some people Emergence is a particular abstract in a particular field - those people were disappointed and found this "light reading" - which is really too bad, because they are the ones who NEED this book the most. Alas, we can expect it to be a while before these "scientist" can look outside their own shallow mud-puddles of their over-specialties to see how applicable emergent theory is to the world we are immersed in, both natural and man-made.

If you didn't find this book exciting, you didn't read it. Sit down and read it without distraction and prejudice. Let Johnson do what he does best; take you on a journey of ideas and concepts. Sure, some of it is simplified for the lay-reader, but anybody who isn't a total couch-potato is going to find the content interesting enough to set-out and search for details on their own. It isn't Johnson's goal to elaborate on some trivial and fragmentary specialty that only people with masters degrees and secured positions in academia could possibly enjoy or tolerate.

His goal is to show what emergence IS and why it is SO important, how vast the concepts are in their potential application in every imaginable field, and how elegant, simple, complex, chaotic, and BEAUTIFUL emergence IS !

And he does exactly this quite well. If you read this book and are not excited, you didn't get it. Read it again. And again. Look up the examples of emergence, and try to actually find your own examples of emergence in YOUR world, in YOUR daily experience. The enrichment you'll gain from it will be worth a lot more than any silly over-specialty in an obscure field of research that nobody has ever heard

If I had read this book when it came out in 2002 it would have been eye-opening, but in the four years since a lot of Johnson's ideas have seeped through the culture and media. It's still exciting to think about the ways that emergence and swarm theories link such initially unlikely things as ants, cities, brains, and computers, but once Johnson suggests the associations early in the book, the reader readily makes the connection. After that, it's simply a matter of examining other examples and nodding sagely, noting how quaint software like Sim City and Logo seems after four years. One of the virtues of contemporary non-fiction is that it can be skimmed easily. This book isn't old enough to be a classic nor new enough to cut much edge. Johnson's prose is easy to read, though - he tells jokes enough to keep the reader amused and he doesn't take himself so seriously that you feel lost or dumb. But I wouldn't spend much time with this book.

If I had read this book when it came out in 2002 it would have been eye-opening, but in the four years since a lot of Johnson's ideas have seeped through the culture and media. It's still exciting to think about the ways that emergence and swarm theories link such initially unlikely things as ants, cities, brains, and computers, but once Johnson suggests the associations early in the book, the reader readily makes the connection. After that, it's simply a matter of examining other examples and nodding sagely, noting how quaint software like Sim City and Logo seems after four years. One of the virtues of contemporary non-fiction is that it can be skimmed easily. This book isn't old enough to be a classic nor new enough to cut much edge. Johnson's prose is easy to read, though - he tells jokes enough to keep the reader amused and he doesn't take himself so seriously that you feel lost or dumb. But I wouldn't spend much time with this book.

The book discusses how intelligence could rise from the individual level and not from the top down. The author agues that if you have 1000+ agents each able to perceive certain objects and having simple senses then some sort of pattern or intelligence should rise. The author also discusses how cities govern them selves and stay constant over time.
I was interested to this book because I hoped it would help me understand how patterns and intelligence could rise in multi agent environment, in which each agent is as dumb (if not dumber) than an ant. I was also hoping to find a discussion about the importance of reputation or feedback in creating such patterns.
Although the first couple of chapters (up to 4) were interesting, the author kept repeating the same example over and over again, so it got really boring at the end. Further more some examples could be removed without affecting the information presented. Sometimes you think the author is giving too many examples. Discussions which are of no relevance to the topic are rampant in this book. For example a discussion about Turning's accomplishments is important to show his authority on the subject, but discussing his homosexuality and troubles before suicide does not help in explaining the topic. Furthermore for some people the mere mention of homosexuality destroys the authority of that person, something that the author spent several pages discussing.

The book discusses how intelligence could rise from the individual level and not from the top down. The author agues that if you have 1000+ agents each able to perceive certain objects and having simple senses then some sort of pattern or intelligence should rise. The author also discusses how cities govern them selves and stay constant over time.
I was drawn to this book because I hoped it would help me how patterns and intelligence could rise in multi agent environment in which each agent is as dump (if not dumber) than an ant. I was also hoping to find a discussion about the importance of reputation or feedback in creating such patterns.
Although the first couple of chapters (4) were interesting, the author kept repeating the same example over and over again. Further more some examples could be removed without affecting the information presented. Sometimes you think the author is giving too many examples. Discussions which are of no relevance to the topic are rampant in this book. For example a discussion about Turning's accomplishments is important to show his authority on the subject, but discussing his homosexuality and troubles before suicide does not help in explaining the topic. Furthermore for some people the mere mention of homosexuality destroys the authority of that person, something that the author spent several pages discussing.

'Emergence' takes the reader on a search for intelligent life. Specifically, the book attempts to answer the question, what is 'intelligence' and would I know it if I saw it. In the author's view, intelligence is something that emerges from a system. The actors in the sysem need not have any intelligence. Intelligence emerges from the interaction of dumb agents. It is a property of the sytem, not an attribute of any one individual. In other words, intelligence is like the 'soul', something of great importance, but entirely without physical genesis. It isn't a chemical reaction, it is like static electricity: rub enough pieces together and intelligence emerges.

To demonstrate this, the book investigates systems which exhibit 'intelligence' (problem solving) without a central processing unit (or any individual intelligent unit). His first example of 'system intelligence' is the ant hill. Ants use the following formula for organizing the hill. Rule 1: take trash to the trash dump. 2: the trash dump must be as far as possible from the hill. 3: take dead ants to the cemetery. 4: the cemetery must be as far as possible from the ant hill and trash heap. The problem of triangulating the location of the cemetery, trash heap and ant hill can be seen as a geometric problem requiring 'higher intelligence'. Johnson goes on to discuss how 'unintelligent' ants happen to be, but at this level Johnson is speculating. He never discusses any experimental evidence on ant cognition (or problem solving abilities). The setup is there, but there is no carry through.

After ants, Johnson turns to cities, both simulated and real. Johnson uses cities to describe positive feedback loops. He describes the notion of 'persistence through change' (example: silk weavers have been on Florence's 'old bridge' for 1000 years) and 'energy management for possitive feedback loops': recycling wastes produced higher medieval crop yields, which produces more people and more wastes.

After attempting to convince the reader of the complexity of cities, Johnson turns to 'global mind'. This notion of the 'global mind' reflects a popular myth that intelligence is a product of 'information cascades'. In other words, just put a lot of people together and there will be 'information cascades' and this simply produces 'intelligent behaviors' despite that intelligence never being present in any one individual of the 'cascade' (see ant hill). This is complete bunk, as shown by recent research on primate mirror neurons.

The book ends up begin an exploration of circular metaphors. Consider the way Johnson uses the term 'emergence'. At one point, Johnson retells the how the Clinton-Jenifer Flowers story came to life. According to Johnson, the media moguls had spiked the story. The headquarters were surprised the next day when the story leaked out via CNN affiliates and got so much attention that the morning shows couldn't ignore it. This all came to pass due to CNN's policy of letting affiliates pick and choose their stories from the raw news feed. According to Johnson, when the mainstream media decided to allow affiliates to pick and choose the day's news, "that was the moment at which the system began to display emergent behavior. The system began calling the shots". I'm not sure what makes this an 'emergent' moment, it could easily have simply be a more democratic system, an expansion of the 'elector' pool or just a return to reality.

Many of the 'issues' are genuinely interesting. Like many books of this genre, painting the picture is all the author seems capable of doing. Making sense of it is a problem left to the reader.

'Emergence' lead the read on a search for intelligent life. Specifically, the book attempts to answer the question, what is 'intelligence' and would I know it if I saw it. In the author's view, intelligence is something that emerges from a system. The actors in the sysem need not have any intelligence. Intelligence emerges from the interaction of dumb agents. It is a property of the sytem, not an attribute of any one individual. In other words, intelligence is like the 'soul', something of great importance, but entirely without physical genesis. It isn't a chemical reaction, it is like static electricity: rub enough pieces together and intelligence emerges.

To demonstrate this, the book investigates systems which exhibit 'intelligence' (problem solving) without a central processing unit (or any individual intelligent unit). His first example of 'system intelligence' is the ant hill. Ants use the following formula for organizing the hill. Rule 1: take trash to the trash dump. 2: the trash dump must be as far as possible from the hill. 3: take dead ants to the cemetery. 4: the cemetery must be as far as possible from the ant hill and trash heap. The problem of triangulating the location of the cemetery, trash heap and ant hill can be seen as a geometric problem requiring 'higher intelligence'. Johnson goes on to discuss how 'unintelligent' ants happen to be, but at this level Johnson is speculating. He never discusses any experimental evidence on ant cognition (or problem solving abilities). The setup is there, but there is no carry through.

After ants, Johnson turns to cities, both simulated and real. Johnson uses cities to describe positive feedback loops. He describes the notion of 'persistence through change' (example: silk weavers have been on Florence's 'old bridge' for 1000 years) and 'energy management for possitive feedback loops': recycling wastes produced higher medieval crop yields, which produces more people and more wastes.

After attempting to convince the reader of the complexity of cities, Johnson turns to 'global mind'. This notion of the 'global mind' reflects a popular myth that intelligence is a product of 'information cascades'. In other words, just put a lot of people together and there will be 'information cascades' and this simply produces 'intelligent behaviors' despite that intelligence never being present in any one individual of the 'cascade' (see ant hill). This is complete bunk, as shown by recent research on primate mirror neurons.

The book ends up begin an exploration of circular metaphors. Consider the way Johnson uses the term 'emergence'. At one point, Johnson retells the how the Clinton-Jenifer Flowers story came to life. According to Johnson, the media moguls had spiked the story. The headquarters were surprised the next day when the story leaked out via CNN affiliates and got so much attention that the morning shows couldn't ignore it. This all came to pass due to CNN's policy of letting affiliates pick and choose their stories from the raw news feed. According to Johnson, when the mainstream media decided to allow affiliates to pick and choose the day's news, "that was the moment at which the system began to display emergent behavior. The system began calling the shots". I'm not sure what makes this an 'emergent' moment, it could easily have simply be a more democratic system, an expansion of the 'elector' pool or just a return to reality.

Many of the 'issues' are genuinely interesting. Like many books of this genre, painting the picture is all the author seems capable of doing. Making sense of it is a problem left to the reader.

Johnson leads the reader on a wandering discussion of issues. Many of the 'issues' are genuinely interesting. Like many books of this genre, painting the picture is all the author seems capable of doing. Making sense of it is a problem left to the reader.

Johnson wants to discuss the nature of intelligence. More specifically, he is interested in demonstrating the ability of systems to exhibit 'intelligence' (problem solving) without a central processing unit (or any individual intelligent unit). Intelligence 'emerges'. His first example of 'system intelligence' is the ant hill. Ants use the following formula for organizing the hill. Rule 1: take trash to the trash dump. 2: the trash dump must be as far as possible from the hill. 3: take dead ants to the cemetery. 4: the cemetery must be as far as possible from the ant hill and trash heap. The problem of triangulating the location of the cemetery, trash heap and ant hill can be seen as a geometric problem requiring 'higher intelligence'. Johnson goes on to discuss how 'unintelligent' ants happen to be, but at this level Johnson is speculating. He never discusses any experimental evidence on ant cognition (or problem solving abilities). The setup is there, but there is no carry through.

After ants, Johnson turns to cities, both simulated and real. Johnson uses cities to describe positive feedback loops. He describes the notion of 'persistence through change' (example: silk weavers have been on Florence's 'old bridge' for 1000 years) and 'energy management for possitive feedback loops': recycling wastes produced higher medieval crop yields, which produces more people and more wastes.

After attempting to convince the reader of the complexity of cities, Johnson turns to 'global mind'. This notion of the 'global mind' reflects a popular myth that intelligence is a product of 'information cascades'. In other words, just put a lot of people together and there will be 'information cascades' and this simply produces 'intelligent behaviors' despite that intelligence never being present in any one individual of the 'cascade' (see ant hill). This is complete bunk, as shown by recent research on primate mirror neurons.

The first chapter will pique your interest. The next two chapters will present interesting examples of emergent behavior. The remainder of the book will likely leave you feeling frustrated at the poor presentation and disappointed at the lack of follow-through on your expectations from chapter 1. The density of useful information drops precipitously as the book progresses, degrading to something at or below what you would expect to read in a blog (I'm serious). I must admit I haven't been able to finish the last chapter.

I saw Steven Johnson being interviewed when this book first came out and couldn't quite understand what he was saying about emergence theory, but knew intuitively that it was important. That night I ordered a copy from Amazon.

When the book arrived I found out I wasn't wrong. Emergence theory is, to my way of thinking, one of the most interesting scientific developments of the last fifty years. And Johnson explains it (albeit somewhat superficially) in a way that makes sense to the average (or maybe above average) reader.

As a dog trainer, who for the last fifteen years or so has had trouble buying the alpha theory of canine behavior, I knew the idea that some systems are smarter than the sum of their parts might explain why so many otherwise intelligent people believe that dogs and wolves are capable of abstract, conceptual, and symbolic thinking (which they'd have to be in order for the alpha theory to make any sense). For instance, some alpha theorists are now sayiing there isn't just one alpha wolf, but several, depending on what the pack is doing at any given moment. This contradicts the entire idea of an alpha wolf, or top dog, or pack leader. Yet when you look at the phenomenon through emergence theory (at least as Johnson explains it), you begin to recognize that the pack's structure changes organically -- from the bottom up, not the top down -- in order to deal with the changing needs of the system as a whole. The pack has no hierarchical structure at all! (This has been borne out recently by research done by L. David Mech, studying wild wolf behavior, and by McNutt and Boggs, studying the wild dogs of Africa.)

I realize my take on the subject is very narrowly defined, particularly in this review. But like Johnson I studied semiotics in college (as a film major) and can see how knowing that emergent systems are operating all around us, whether you see this by watching a group of dogs at the dog run, or by noticing the subtle shifts that take place over time in your own neighborhood, or by analyzing the entire zeitgeist itself -- it's very compelling way of thinking and a lot of fun.

I highly recommend this book, not only here, but in the Suggested Reading list in the backs of all my novels!

This book was an eye-opener for me. It gives insights into aspects of the world, society, life in general, that are based on an unusual, and startling way of looking at things.

It's also well-written, easy to read and understand, and yet full of scientfic background data.

Top notch.

There is so much scientific nonsense in the book that it is appalling!
Working in the field of self-organized behavior in insects colonies, I can tell you that the presentation of that subject in the book is awful!
The number of wrong statement is so outrageously large that they are impossible to list below 10 pages of text!!
It is a pity because such a book completely discredits a real scientific field that is confronted enough with new-age babble, scientific unfounded or wrong statements, pseudo-philosophical stupidities and so on.
If you want to learn something real about "emergence" please stay away from this book.
The rating of 1 star is just for the paper on which the book is written...

This book deals with a very important topic - how new organizations arise in the various contexts of biology, cognitive science, sociology, and computer science. The author, a science writer, is clearly enthusiastic about his subject, and he provides several vivid examples of emergence phenomena, including the spontaneous development of patterns in ant colonies, the growth of cities, the development of the World Wide Web, and emergence of mind from the ten to one hundred neurons of the human brain.

General books of this sort, it seems to me, fall into three classes. The first - which includes Steven Johnson's "Emergence" - comprise books written by skillful writers who have little basic scientific knowledge and are therefore uncomfortably dependent on the particular experts whom they choose to interview. The second class is written by scientists who are familiar with the many details of their area, but lack the ability to write. These writers often produce books that are informative but tedious for the general reader. The third class, of which there are few examples, are by scientists who also know how to write.

It seems to me unfair to criticize Johnson for not being a scientist, as other reviewers of this book have done. Johnson does not claim to be a scientist and the reader cannot expect him to have mastered all aspects of a wide and complicated subject like emergence. Indeed, I have my own list of important names in the area of which he seems to be unaware, including Chris Langton (artificial life), John Conway (game of life), Donald Hebb (cell assemblies in the brain), Manfred Eigen (hypercycles in proto-biology, Lev Landau (polaron), Warren McCulloch and Warren Pitts (logical theory of the brain), Thomas Kuhn (scientific revolutions), William James (nature of religious conversion), the list goes on.

If you know nothing about emergence but would like to experience the excitement of researchers in this emerging area,you will enjoy and profit from reading this well written book. Be warned, however, that the subject is much larger that Steven Johnson yet imagines.

Alwyn Scott
http://personal.riverusers.com/~rover/

Emergence is a field that is trying to come to grips with how new behavior emerges out of smaller units. For example, there is no gene for a hive of bees or colony of ants, but the behavior of the nest emerges from them. Some people are using cellular automata as a means of explaining higher order behavior (like Wolfram in A New Kind of Science).

The author makes a point that there are 3 main camps of scientific study.
1 - the study of simple systems - 2 or 3 variables, like electromagnetism, or celestial mechanics.
2 - the study of stochastic systems - few million to few billion variables, like actuarial sciences and genetics.
3 - the study of disorganized complexity. Systems in the middle between 3 and a few million, where the second order characteristics - how they interact, is of primary concern.

Deduction and induction work for the first 2 camps, but for the 3rd, the interactions cause actions and reactions which are what scientists politely call counter intuitive, meaning your first thought is wtf!!!??? Or, in other words, it behaves quite differently from what your instincts and (so called) common sense would tell you.

There are 5 basic principles for developing a system (or simulation of one) which can express emergent behavior.
1 - More is different. You get a very different behavior of the system when certain thresholds are reached.
2 - Ignorance is useful. Ants communicate with a vocabulary of around 20 words/ideas.
3 - Encourage random encounters. Much of the behavior of an ant colony comes from them just bumping into each other (or external things like food, or my foot).
4 - Look for patterns in the signs. Even with the limited vocabulary of ants, they can also express things based on the decay in the pheromones they deposit.
5 - Pay attention to your neighbors. Also described as "local information can lead to global wisdom."

The economist Jane Jacobs had been studying things like this for years, and has been demonized by a number of loud, vocal economists: they want to believe in some centralized controlling force (like tax rate or central bank lending rate), control that force, and you control the development of your economic system. People reading her books tend to think she worships sidewalks, instead, she values the communication that can only happen on sidewalks. You can't say "hi" to your neighbors if you are each zipping past each other on the freeway.

One can experiment with emergent behavior with some software tools. The author explains a few, of which you are most likely to have experience with SimCity.

Most memorable quote:
[Marvin] Minsksy scanned the screens for a few seconds, then asked Resnick what he was working on. "I explained that I was experimenting with some self-organizing systems. Minsky looked at the screen for a while, then said, 'but those creatures aren't self organizing. They're just moving toward the green food.'"

"Minksy had assumed that the green blobs were pieces of food placed throughout the turtles' world. In fact the green blobs were created by the turtles themselves. But Minsky didn't see it that way. Instead of seeing creatures organizing themselves, he saw the creatures organized around pieces of food..."

Minsky had fallen for the myth of the ant queen: the assumption that collective behaviot implied some kind of centralized authority - in this case the food was dictating the behavior of the slime mold cells. Minsky assumed that you could predict where the clusters would form by looking at where the food was placed when the simulation began. But there wasn't any food. Nor was there anything dictating that clusters should form in specific locations. The slime molds were self organizing, albeit with parameters that Resnick had initially designed.

"Minsky has thought more, and more deeply, about self organization and decentralized systems than almost anyone else," Resnick writes. "When I explained the rules underlying the slime mold program to him, he understood immediately what was happening. But his initial assumption was revealing. The fact that even Marvin Minsky had this reaction is an indicator of the powerful attraction of centralized explanations.
(pp 167-168)

One of the enduring myths we have is that of the Ant Queen. The myth supposes that there is some central planning done in an ant colony. Instead, the queen exists only to pop eggs out. Male ants have such short lives, that in most species of ants, they have no mouths to eat with - they don't live long enough to get hungry. The production of warriors and workers is done by pheromones in the colony. Where to gather food is performed by random acts of bumping into things. There is no ant which tells another to go lift that bale and tote that barge. It also appears that our intelligence is a by-product of the neural interactions of our brains.

The main difference between chaos theory and emergent behavior theory lies in a couple important differences. A chaotic system has a number of determinable feedback loops, all of which are (usually critically) dependant upon the starting conditions. Emergent behavior has more to do with feedback loops causing totally different behavior, and when some threshhold (usually population) is passed, the nature of the system drastically changes.

Is emergence a true phenomonon outside of personal experience or a cognitive adaptation solely within personal experience?

This work is a finely told tale of the phenomenon of emergent behavior. How things develop to form something complex not readily apparent from its constituent parts or beginnings. Steven Johnson is thorough, appealing, and clear in his writing. I found this work interesting and engaging. I recommend it to all.

My one criticism of this book is a personal one, not one of error on the author's part. I found this work to be too personality driven. It felt to me to be too much about individual characters and less about ideas. In fact, I think if the actual ideas were distilled from this work the amount would be less than the book suggests. Even with that said, I still think this is a valuable and insightful work.

As a researcher who studies dynamic systems, the topic of emergent properties is very much of interest to me. The first thing I thought when I read the book was how it applied to so many different phenomena in life. Societies, economies, even psychology and the soul. Yes, the soul - it seems reasonable to me that if we are to postulate the concept of a soul for each of us, could we not look at it as an *emergent* property of our brains? Emergent phenomenon explain much in biology, neurology, genetics and immunology. Give a system many interacting parts, some relatively simple rules for interaction, and voila - a system that behaves in a complex manner despite the underlying simplicity. This book is highly accessible to the layperson and I recommend it to everyone looking for general, guiding principles in understanding life and behavior - including our own. Just read the book and think about how it applies to so many different things. Especially recommended for philosophers and scientists.

Emergence is when simple elements self organize to form very sophisticated higher level behavior. You do not have to be an information expert to enjoy reading Emergence by Steven Johnson. He has a knack for describing complicated systems in an understandable way.

He compares self organizing behaviors of ants, complex video games, the brain, online communities, cities and slime mode to name a few. The author explains the similarities in a way that the reader ends up with a really extensive understanding of how these bottom up systems form. He discussed in detail how emergence is affecting the Internet. Will computers ever become self-aware? Will they ever learn to think for themselves? After reading this book, it is clear to me if they ever do emergence will definitely be involved.

Steven Johnston wrote a lot about cities and how their emergent behavior creates a well-organized society. For instance most large cities similar distinct areas like gay and affluent neighborhoods. How do these areas form out of millions of individuals? It is amazing if you stop to think about it. It is all part self-organizing, many individuals interacting to form our great cities. Much of this interaction is too difficult to explain but it is fun to think about.

The book is also filled with interesting history and abstract ideas and facts. I never knew that every ant colony has a graveyard and a trash dump! More interestingly they are strategically placed on opposite ends, furthest away from the colony.

This book makes me think about what is in store for our future. It is exciting and a little scary. Will computers form some type of global brain? It is impossible to know what will happen because part of emergence is giving up control and seeing what happens. Fascinating book!

Very few people have the knowledge and creativity to weave Marshall Macluhan, neural networks and human cognition into a rather cogent theory but Johnson does an admirable job. The sheer quantity of disparate areas of theory that are neatly linked in a highly readable format is rivalled only by the "User Illusion" which could be listed as a good companion to this book.

After reading this I'm hunting down some of the references to learn more and that, to me, is evidence that the book is very thougt-provoking.

Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software by Steven Johnson is a compelling argument for higher order emergence from aggregates of lower order units. Like Stuart Kaufman's works on self organizing criticality-though a lot more easily understood than the latter- Johnson's discourse points out that order can be produced from apparent chaos when "rules" are in place and when some critical number of individuals interact with one another following these rules.

Probably one of the more interesting living systems the author discusses is the slime mold, that unique creature whose cells can act autonomously as individuals or collectively as a unified whole. I'd heard of this phenomenon before, but at that time no underlying cause was given. Johnson notes that their inherently human hierarchical point of view had led researchers to look for pacemaker cells that dictated when, where, and under what conditions cells would form a collective. After years of looking, it became obvious that either no such cells existed or they were very subtly distinguished from the others. According to the author, recent research suggests a more bottom up organization, with individual cells making local decisions about the need to collectivize and using pheromone trails to attract others to them.

Interesting too were the descriptions of emergent systems arising unconsciously from human interactions. The reader interested in modern social problems might benefit from the author's discussion of current top down changes in city organization and urban design. The anthropologist or student of mind/brain research might find his discussion of the rise in human awareness and the concept of self through so-called "mind reading" of interest.

For myself, as a student of history, I enjoyed some of his perspectives on the rise of cities, "Cities have a latent purpose as well [as a manifest purpose] to function as information storage and retrieval devices....Ideas and goods flow readily within these clusters, leading to productive cross-pollination, ensuring that good ideas don't die out in rural isolation....And the extraordinary thing again is that this learning emerges without anyone even being aware of it (p. 108-109)."

The changes that have occurred because of the feedback systems of the internet and the cable industry are also intriguing. Although like many people I've surfed the Amazon.com website, received my "suggestions" for potential purchases, expressed my likes and dislikes of the various books I've read, voted for reviewers whose critiques have help my decisions, and in short become part of a community of similarly minded people, I've not thought about the overall impact that this type of system creates as it spreads to other situations. Johnson makes some very interesting points regarding a bottom up movement in politics and the media and the loss of control by hierarchies. Unconnected, the individual makes little difference, but connected to others of like mind by way of the internet and feed back loops, the collective has power to change a great deal.

Probably the most important point Johnson makes is that much of what arises from this higher order emergence is unpredictable. It might be "good" or "bad" from the point of view of a single unit. As with evolution-one of those situations where this type of action is seen-other types of emergence depend upon random decisions and actions of large numbers of individual units, be they ants, software Sims characters, or cities. One can predict that at some critical number of units the system will go through a "phase transition," suddenly becoming something else. Just what else and what impact that change will have on any one individual is impossible to predict.

Intriguing. Full of lots of provocative concepts.

The best-spent $10 or so of my life. Seriously.
If you are a Software Engineer, or a "Computer Scientist", or you live your life online, you cannot afford to ignore this work, period.
An incredibly lucid, enthralling, and accessible explanation of emergent behavior, swarm intelligence, and self-organizing systems, this book will change the way you think about the Internet, video games, the media, and life, both complex and "simple."
Johnson shows the big picture, where Google fits into the picture, and why Slashdot, Alexa, EBay, and Amazon are significant, in terms of the evolution of the web.
I now truly understand why, while AI is practical (and more pervasive than we realize), artificial sentience is not, and may be impossible altogether. For that matter, I now understand what sentience really is.

If software of any kind is of interest to you (or even if it is not), do yourself a favor and let Mr. Johnson show you where it is headed.

"Call it swarm logic" (p. 74). In his fascinating examination of slime molds, ant colonies, cells, cities, and computer software, Steven Johnson (MIND WIDE OPEN) introduces his reader to the cutting-edge theory of emergence in his 2001 book. He simplifies this complex field of research initiated in the mideighties (p. 85) through example and analogy. Examining ants, for example, Johnson demontrates how these unintelligent insects, "which dominate the planet in a way that makes human populations look like an evolutionary afterthought" (p. 73), organize into complex colonies that adapt in size and behavior to their environment as a single entity, thereby exhibiting a spontaneous and collective intelligence. Johnson then reveals that what connects ant colonies with slime mold, computer games, other living ecologies, the guild system of twelfth-century Florence, cell divisions, and software "is a recurring pattern and shape: a network of self-organization, of disparate agents that unwittingly create a higher-level order" (p. 21). "Just like the clock maker metaphors of the Enlightenment, or the dialectical logic of the nineteenth century," Johnson writes, "the emergent worldview belongs to this moment in time" (p. 56). Although this book may lack depth and detail at times, it is nevertheless an excellent starting point for readers (like me) interested in exploring this revolutionary scientific theory.

G. Merritt

Not really feeling this one. The author argues the case for "complexity theory"; the ability for simple units to coalesce into a larger, synergistic whole. Ants in colonies, citizens in cities, and neurons in brains are used as examples. But then topics dont really tie toghther that well, and the book is scattered and all over the place. No one subject is ever examined in detail. Frankly, I'd rather read a collection of essays on (separately) ants, brains, cities, and software than this disorganized jumble.

On a slight tangent, why is it that people always need to create metaphors when talking about cognition and the human brain? When we are talking about the circulatory system no one makes an analogy to ant colonies... they just talk about the circulatory system. The reason is that (for now) no one knows how the brain works and so fanciful analogies cannot yet be scientifically disproven. I've noticed this is a bad tendency for science writers everywhere.

Cut it out, you blockheads!

For those expecting some rigorous treatment of the subject and a comprehensive overview, this is not the book. But for those wishing to spend a few lazy hours reading up an interdisciplinary delight, this is a good pick. While the treatment of the subject is superficial and introductory, the language and style of writing is admittedly engrossing! The author SJ, manages to inflect his prose with biting sarcasm or simply plain humor at the just the right places, to keep one turning one page onto another.

Another very good element in this book is the numerous references and potential reading lists that one can create. In covering as vast and 'disconnected' a realm of subjects as touted in its cover, SJ traverses a wide expanse of literary sources and is liberal in quoting them... which allows readers with an interest in specific minutiae to explore their subject that bit deeper. To that extent, this book serves as a wonderfully easy to read primer on the subject of emergence; it can probably be likened to Universality by Mark Ward.... without going into the rigorous depths of Chaos (Gleick), and yet serving up something where one is left with numerous trails of thought, each with its own army of books to explore and pursue.

I was not particularly impressed by the book, but that is probably because I already knew the basics of emergent behavior. I felt that the book could have been written in about two-thirds the number of pages and still delivered its message. So, I would not recommed the book to those who have heard of emergence, but if you have never heard of it before, the book should be quite interesting and revealing. The concepts are put forward in a nice and simple way.

Stephen Johnson is out to find connections, and he undoubtedly has found some between ants, brains, cities and software. As a cultural critic Johnson relies heavily on outside sources for all of his 'down and dirty' research; Deborah Gordon's studies on ants; Mitch Resnick's slime mold program, Will Wright's Sim's game, and Rob Malda's Slashdot rating system; and Giaccomo Rizzolati's mirror neurons. Needless to say his Notes and Bibliography sections are broad and vast.

I am still very curious about these mirror neurons that exist only in humans and chimpanzees. Johnson used Rizzolati's study of the frontal lobe to close a section on neurological connections between people. Unfortunately, that's all he used it for, a closing to an introduction that was already overstuffed with information about perception studies and autism.

For each schizophrenic section there are at least a dozen coherent sections, so the comparisons that Johnson makes between disparate fields are persuasive and legible. The most well-read area of this book deals with cities and their patterns for behavioral learning. You don't have to read the acknowledgements to know that Johnson lives on the island of Manhattan, there are suggestions throughout the text of the invincible air a pedestrian city carries, and I imagine that some of his conclusions aggravate the tiresome rivalry bewteen New York and Los Angeles. Having said that, he pulls a strong thread through Krugman's "polycentric, plum-pudding pattern of the modern metropolis," Jacobs discussions on urban growth as it relates to densities, and Engels's first glimpse of Manchester as it launched modernity.

Individual ants follow a relatively simple set of rules, yet the complex, adaptive behavior of the ant colony emerges. The major accomplishment of this book is to instill in the reader a true appreciation of the power of this concept, so that your view of the world is fundamentally expanded. Johnson also gets into related, intellectually more challenging ideas, such as group consciousness, and has a wonderful talent for explanation: he was even able to explain to me a passage from Robert Wright, an author who is almost always clear himself. He incorporates personal anecdote and intellectual history without overdoing either. The organization of the book is not entirely linear, but I found this a positive, on balance. Johnson's ideas on the future of software were fascinating, and he managed to give me some appreciation for video games. There was a bit of unnecessary repetition, a few dull pages, and the amount of attention devoted to the emergent behavior of cities was not justified by the quality of material presented on this subject. Never-the-less, this is an extraordinary book, a definite must read, even for the reader with some background, which I had.

Don't know why so many people beat up on this book. Frankly, I think most of the criticism on here is curmudgeony sour grapes. Yes, it is not written by someone in the field. That's a good thing. It's actually written by someone who can write, which is why so many people noted how readable it was. Sure there are more implications that could have been drawn, but so what. If I was grading just pure stimulation, this would get 5 stars; it gets you thinking and seeing things in a new light. I agree with the woman from the restaurant. This is well worth the time.

Sometimes, first exposures to interesting topics are best done through our ears than with our eyes reading books. This seems to be the case for me here. After 30 minutes flipping through this book at the book store, I decided to wait until the Audible(tm) version becomes available to definetely buy it then.

The theme (already commented on by other reviewers) is a long narration written with wit and energy. Indeed, as you follow the clear logic, your curiosity grows to see the conclusion which seems near. Instead, the theme unfolds and grabs your interest further. You do not mind not reaching the conclusion just yet as the unfoldings have now captured your attention once again.

Visual oriented learners may be dissapointed as graphics, images, bullet point lists and summaries are scarce.

Here were my 2 cents worth...

As per the previous reviews the book is an exuberant romp through a fascinating field of theory. The first half of the book is wonderful and will get you thinking about things differently (unless you are already well read in the area -- which I am not). The annecdotes regarding ants and cities are great introductory material but I found myself wanting the writer to go a little deeper. Chapters 5 and 6 are a little weak and find the author waxing excitedly about a variety of disconnected threads. The closing section of the book is an interesting attempt to extrapolate current trends into the future -- mostly dwelling on music, film, broadband etc. The futurism would have been more satisfying if it had touched more on other areas of life, medical, manufacturing, but that would have required a far greater leap. Overall, a fun book and a very quick read!

Steven Johnson is an observer of technology and how man finds new ways to adapt it to his needs. He has just the right amount of detachment to see how what's to come meshes with what has been. This "big picture" is what makes reading his work so easy. He takes concepts and ideas that we are already familiar with from our regular routines and explains how technology is trying to solve the same problems. This makes it easy to understand. Emergence is one of those rare books that is at once a cheerleader for man's ingenuity and has the stats and facts to back them up.

Mr. Johnson's ideas about how social networks emerge and bend new technology to their needs is compelling and hopeful.

I've been a fan of his since his days at FEED. If only the web's best online magazine, FEED, had found the resources to carry on.

This general interest reader tome should spark the imagination of many. It sparked mine.

This is the first book I read on complexity science. I have a restaurant with 100 employees and it changed my thinking about the questions we ask about what success is in business. It has had great import for me to review what it meant to determine specific outcomes in my business, as opposed to letting emergent behavior create a much more complex and rich outcome than I would have alone being the CEO of Lynn's Paradise Cafe. The connections this book has made for me in my town have changed my life. It's a great entree into complexity science and I look forward to more from a really great writer.

Those looking for an easy to understand introduction to the concept of emergence will find what they are looking for in this book. The examples of how; ant colonies, cities, software, and perhaps even the human embryonic cell use 'bottoms-up' intelligence to create higher order results, are clearly explained and easy to understand. Even the most uneducated lay person will have little trouble following the logic. The writing style is conversational and moves along easily. Overall, a pretty decent beginning to this subject for the wholly uninitiated.

Potential readers should be aware of some other points as well, though. 1.The author seems to make large leaps of logic to reach the conclusions that he seeks, sometimes using perhaps deceitful tactics (ex. in the beginning of the book a picture of the human brain is shown next to the city of Hamburg, which happens to have a similiar shape - the reader gets the feeling that the author wants us to believe this is so due to emergence, rather than chance, never mind that most cities do not resemble a human brain) 2.While the examples in the book are clear and do a lot to help the reader understand emergence, the author keeps repeating them over and over again. Really, the book could have been half it's length and held the same content. 3.There is a lack of more in-depth material in the second half of this book. It would have been nice if the author could have built upon his good beginning by covering more ground. One wonders if he didn't think his readers too stupid to handle it.

Still, overall, an acceptable introduction. Some may find it an interesting curiosity and enjoy it on that basis. Those looking for more information, or who already know anything about emergence should get a different book.

The publishing industry continues to fuel the growth of popular science with titles like Emergence. I'm all for the growth of science titles, but the price comes at the increase in the number of watered-down, easy-to-digest material you'll find in bookstores. With the explosion in books written on the topic of complex adaptive systems, I found it difficult to choose a single book in the category. With little restraint, I dove in.

Emergence is a light, easy read devoted to describing systems that demonstrate adaptive behavior. The author sends significant time on contemporary systems such as the news media, the worldwide web, and large urban areas. On more than one occasion, the author appears to be reaching to make a conclusion. It's difficult to say whether he hadn't done the research or wanted the reader to draw his/her own conclusion.

Nonetheless, Steven Johnson paints an abstract picture of systems that demonstrate a larger, collective set of smarts. Like most abstract art, some people will be inspired and others won't. I found the writing and subject matter interesting enough to keep my curiosity fueled to pick up another book on complex systems. If you approach Emergence with a mind-set of getting more art than science, you're less likely to be let down.

I understand a bit about emergence and a bit about some of the fields Mr Johnson finds his examples in. And by "a bit" I do mean rudimentary. This was unfortunate since I soon began to distrust his observations, comparisons and logic. This lead me to becoming quite irritated by the entire tone of the book: it's clear that the point of the book, the motivation, is not about trying to communicate or impart understanding.

I can read through incoherent rhetorical structure, wordy prose, and I can sift through factual mistakes, but logical errors are beyond redemption. This book's strength would be its ability to take me to places I wouldn't have otherwise gone, and this is probably part of its conception. But if the connection to the new thought, the new observation, the "ah-hah" perspective is missing, incomplete or so hay-wire as to merely provide a warning that we're making a difficult jump I'd rather spend the time doing something else.

The point about the rhetorical structure fairly leapt out at me - particularly since Mr Johnson observes that "Godel, Escher, Bach" has a "convoluted rhetorical structure." To my eye, that of GEB is complex and pedantic, while this book's is random and without intention. OK, this is not quite fair. The structure of this book seems at large to be random and locally to favour the dramatic flourish. When an interesting point is to be made Mr Johnson seems to sidle up to it in an effort to either catch it or the reader unawares, presents it with an fanfare and hurries on. This is not a book to hold up as an example of something that is simultaneously informative and entertaining.

Forthright definitions of fundamental things like emergence and pattern are missing. These are crucial to an understanding, but they would be fatally limiting to the book.

I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would recommend this book: If a person knew enough to not be bamboozled they'd be better off with something better written and more focused, whereas I don't know anyone for whom I care so little that I'd allow their lack of knowledge or reason to be messed up like this.