I wanted to post a short one this week as I've been pondering over this topic for a few weeks now. I find emergence theory a fascinating subject, as I try to find a novel connection with it and the topologies of teams here's a quick primer on what it is and why I'm questioning my own free will đ«
In physics and philosophy, emergence refers to novel types of behaviour that arise in systems with many interacting components. Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder (from the video below) gives a simple example of the âMexican waveâ at a sports event.
The basic rule is that itâs impossible to create this wave alone (you actually need between about 25-30 people minimum according to this study); it emerges from the collective actions of many individuals. Similarly, in physics, phenomena like sound waves emerge from the collective behaviour of atoms, even though no single atom possesses the property of âsound.â
So, emergence means that the whole is not just the sum of its parts, but something else. To help philosophers and scientists argue about free will, we typically classify emergence into two types:
Weak emergence: The emergent property can be derived from the systemâs constituentsâ properties and interactions - Like having lots of sheets of paper (exactly 1 atom thick đ). When you stack them you produce a paper tower that has a âtallnessâ. The tallness is a property of the stack of paper, not the individual sheet.
Strong emergence: A new novel behaviour that we cannot derive from its constituentsâ properties and interactions - You fold the sheets of paper into paper aeroplanes, which alone can fly a reasonable distance (youâre good at making paper aeroplanes), but when thrown together in a formation, they create air currents that allow them all to fly much further and into theđïž.
If you want to look into emergence in more detail here are a couple of interesting videos: