Emergence
by Steven Johnson · first published 2001
80% recommend20% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible tour of how simple agents in ants, slime molds, brains and cities produce complex collective behavior; readers like how it links disparate fields. Suits general readers and curious engineers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Emergence is what happens when an interconnected system of relatively simple elements self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behavior. It's a bottom-up model, rather than being engineered by a general or a master planner; emergence begins at the ground level. Systems that at first glance seem vastly different - ant colonies, human brains, cities, immune systems - all turn out to follow the rules of emergence. In each of these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies a scale above them: ants create colonies, urbanites create neigh
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…Analogies - Hofstadter Atlas Shrugged - Rand The Fountainhead - Rand Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin Time Reborn - Lee Smolin Ambient Findability - Peter Morville Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software - Steven Johnson Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age - Duncan Watts Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What…
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗Obligatory thesis that cracks this open: "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" An utterly phenomenal book: https://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Connected-Brains-Cities-Sof...
on “What is emergence?” ↗Beyond Fear - Schneier Sources of Power - Klein. This guy did research on how experts made decisions under stressful situations. Normal Accidents - Perrow Emergence - Johnson
on “Ask HN: Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity?” ↗…this topic that compares ants, slime molds, brains and cities: how simple organisms create seemingly intelligent behavior. It's like G.E.B. in how it ties together disparate domains, but not as brutal. Emergence The Connected Lives Of Ants Brains Cities & Software by Steven Johnson https://www.powells.com/book/emergence-the-connected-lives-o...
on “A giant crawling brain: the world of termites (2018)” ↗…Musashi's Book of Five Rings 2) Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People 3) Machaivelli's The Prince 4) Sun-Tzu's The Art of War 5) Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action 6) Steven Johnson's Emergence 7) Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel 8) Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything 9) Mark Buchanan's Nexus 10) C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain Taken together, these books cover just about…
on “What books would you recommend reading? Why?” ↗I had not heard of "emergent architecture" until you implied you hated it, and so I thought I would Google it. I have no idea what emergent architecture is in the agile context, but the idea of emergence is fascinating to me, and has been ever since I read "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" by Steven Johnson. We see the idea of emergent design everywhere in nature…
on “Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending (2018)” ↗Check out the book 'Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software' (Steven Johnson) for more awesome discussion of ant behavior, among other things. Some highlights: * Ants will sacrifice themselves as 'living…
on “Fire ants lock legs and jaws to form rafts, avoid drowning” ↗…computing or systems where there is no central controller or fail to grasp emergent behavior. But nature is fine with completely decentralized systems: see, for example, foraging ants. See, for example, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson 1. https://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i103su12/files/2011/07/19... 2. https://oc.ac.ge/file.php/16/_1_Shirky_2005_Ontology_is_Over...
on “The time has come to replace file systems” ↗Ants behave similarly. If Steven Johnson's book Emergence, he writes that ant colonies have three "landmarks" - the queen, the dead ants, and a "trash pile" - husks and leftovers from food and foraging. The queen is placed first, and as ants die they will place…
on “Cockroaches live in a democracy (2006)” ↗I just started reading "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" by Steven Johnson. Not a highly technical piece, but heard that it should be one of the must-reads for anybody in tech.
on “Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List” ↗