Picture this: You are at a park, enjoying a lovely sunny day. A huge flock of hundred or so birds swoops overhead, moving gracefully in unison. The birds change direction together, never crashing into one another, like a well-choreographed dance troupe. “How do they do that?” you wonder, as you watch the mesmerising spectacle unfold.
When you look at them, you realise that they behave as if they were one single organism made up of individual birds. “What makes the flock behave so intelligently?”, you wonder.
The answer, as it turns out, lies in a fascinating phenomenon known as “emergent behaviour.” It is the invisible puppeteer behind these seemingly coordinated acts in nature (in this case, the phenomenon is referred to as murmuration).
This subtle phenomenon has profound consequences, and may even form the basis of what we call intelligence and conscience.
I this essay, I will be diving into the rabbit hole of complex (adaptive) systems and present how even the simplest components can act in unison to create the most extraordinary (intelligent) behaviour.
And don’t worry, I will be keeping things light and humorous along the way. Let us begin.
The Ingredients of Emergence
Emergent behaviour is a natural phenomenon that occurs in complex (adaptive) systems. Such systems are made up of several interacting parts.
These individual parts, or agents, can be as simple as ants or as complex as human beings. To drive this point home, let me present you with a different scale. The very same complex-system-agents may be as simple as atoms or as complex as galaxies.
The noteworthy bit here is that when these agents start interacting with one another, something very interesting happens: the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
To understand emergent behaviour, I prefer breaking it down into three key ingredients:
1. Simple rules: The agents in a complex system follow simple rules. These rules guide their interactions with other agents and their environment. Imagine these to be the rules of an elaborate game.
2. Interaction: As the agents follow their rules, they start to mingle with one another, like guests at a cocktail party. Their interactions form a complex web, shaping the system’s overall behaviour. This is akin to unique game strategies that naturally emerge as the players (agents) try to gain from the rules.
3. Emergence: As the agents interact and strategies unfold, a pattern emerges, one that we often cannot predict looking at the individual agents in isolation.
Take the flock of birds for example. The flock intuitively solves complex aerodynamics problems that no single bird would be capable of!
Because of this “emergent” intelligence, the flock appears to you as if it were one single organism.
Emergent Behaviour is Abundant in Nature
At this point, you might be wondering where else could one observe such behaviour. Well, it occurs everywhere, if you are perceptive enough. Other prominent examples include ant colonies and coral reefs.
Let us consider another example; this time, involving human beings. Imagine that you are at a stadium, waiting for the first game of the season to begin. To pass the time, you and a few friends start doing “the” wave.
The rules are simple: when the person to your right raises his or her hands, you follow suit. Soon, the entire stadium is doing the wave, and it becomes a collective, self-organising spectacle.
To the flock of birds flying above you, the stadium would appear to be one single organism. That is a pretty crazy realisation, right? But wait; it gets more interesting!
A Mexican wave barely scratches the surface of human emergent behaviour. Since we are more complex creatures (than birds, for instance), our systems are inherently much more complex. This leads to some spectacular emergent behaviours.
Emergent Behaviour Gets More Interesting in Human Systems
Our societies, economies, and even our cities are rife with examples of this fascinating phenomenon. Let us take a quick tour of complex emergent behaviour in the human world:
Traffic jams:
We’ve all been there, stuck in the middle of a seemingly endless traffic jam, wondering who or what is responsible for this misery. Well, the answer might surprise you: it’s us!
Traffic jams can emerge when drivers fail to follow simple rules, like trying to maintain a safe distance from the car in front (I kid you not; check out this article for more information on this).
As more cars join the road, drivers brake and accelerate to keep pace, leading to the dreaded “stop-and-go” traffic that can bring a highway to a standstill. So next time you’re cursing at traffic, remember: it’s not always the width of the road, it’s sometimes us!
The economy:
Economies are like giant, invisible machines powered by the interactions between countless individuals and businesses.
Each agent follows simple rules, like buying low and selling high, or producing goods that consumers demand. As these agents interact, markets emerge, prices fluctuate, and economic growth/decay occurs.
The complexities of modern economies are a prime example of emergent behaviour at work. This is also one of the reasons why we are inherently so bad at predicting the market.
We are individuals who can never match the “emergent” intelligence that a collective organism such as the market possesses.
Some of the top mathematical hedge funds beat the market by simulating this emergent behaviour and gaining minor advantages over individuals (essentially reversing the situation).
Cities:
Cities are like living, breathing organisms that arise from the collective actions of their inhabitants. Each person follows simple rules, like commuting to work or shopping for groceries.
As people interact, neighbourhoods form, traffic patterns emerge, sub-cultures form, and a city’s unique character takes shape. This self-organising aspect of cities is why urban planners often struggle to predict how a city will evolve over time.
All this is very interesting. But if we have come to the point of recognising such emergent behaviour in human systems, can’t we harness this knowledge somehow?
Harnessing Emergent Behaviour
As it turns out, understanding emergent behaviour has profound implications for science, technology, and even policy-making.
For example, the current state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) systems use principles of emergent behaviour to learn and adapt without explicit programming.
These AI systems, inspired by the collective intelligence of bird flocks or ant colonies, can tackle complex problems like optimising logistics networks or predicting financial markets.
Similarly, policymakers can use insights from emergent behaviour to design more effective interventions (interest-rate hikes, anyone?).
By recognising that economies, cities, and societies are complex systems, we can develop policies that leverage the power of self-organisation, rather than trying to impose top-down solutions.
Conclusion
Emergent behaviour is a captivating phenomenon that offers a glimpse into the hidden workings of complex adaptive systems.
From bird flocks to human societies, emergent behaviour reminds us that there’s always more to the world than meets the eye.
By understanding emergent behaviour, we can appreciate the beauty and complexity of the natural world, and even learn to harness its power to tackle some of our most pressing challenges.
So, the next time you are marvelling at a murmuration of bird flocks or cursing a traffic jam, remember: you’re witnessing the awe-inspiring power of emergence at work.
And who knows? Our conscience is perhaps the outcome of the emergent behaviour of our central nervous system!
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Further reading that might interest you:
- How To Benefit From Computer Science In Real Life? (III)
- The Lonely Search For Deus Ex Machina
- How To Use Leverage In Life Using First Principles?
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