On the Concept of Emergence

The formation of new properties and behaviors in the environments with interacting simple sub-elements is abundant in nature and also in human societies. This phenomenon is called as emergent property or emergent behavior in the language of system science. Despite its resemblance to the concept of system, the system definition of having a different function compared to the sub-elements may not be satisfied since the emergent property is mostly not a function. On the other hand, the emergent behavior is very similar to the concept of system. (*)

The properties of mass and weight are used interchangeably in daily language. However, if we have look at these properties from scientific point of view we see that mass is a fundamental property but weight is an emergent property. We can calculate weight of an object only when it is in a gravitational field and due to the fact that it is a result of interaction of two objects, weight is an emergent property. Volume, which is another property of all objects is also not a fundamental property but it is emergent. Emergence of volume is not due to the interaction with another object but it is a result of the interaction of fundamental particles forming the object. Even though the fundamental particles like electrons don’t have volume property, their tendency for not occupying same quantum state in their interactions results in the emergent property of volume. There are also fundamental particles not interacting in such a repulsive way and they come together to form energy. You may ask what properties electron posses if it doesn’t even have volume. According to the accepted physics theory, electron is a collection of numbers determining its interaction with other fundamental particles and gravity (**). If we accept such a physics theory stating that all fundamental particles are collection of numbers, we should also accept that all observables are emergent properties and behaviors since we can’t observe abstract numbers. Even in an experiment where we observe a single electron, we can’t measure anything other than the interaction of the electron and the measurement apparatus.

Let’s investigate more carefully the emergence of concrete observables as interactions of abstract numbers. Is this really possible? In a previous article, when we investigated emergence of randomness starting from number 1 using combine operation and its shortcut, we couldn’t obtain any concrete concepts. What is different now which enabled emergence of concrete objects and their behaviors? The answer may be residing in the fact that we don’t live in the universe of whole numbers we imagined but we live in this universe formed of fundamental particles which are collections of numbers. It would be a good emergence example if concrete objects are possible only with us observing and feeling them. If this is the case, I leave the question of our minds being concrete or abstract to you, readers.

Let’s leave aside this philosophical discussion and continue with complex system examples where emergent properties and behaviors are observed. Large bird flocks are interesting for both scientists and people who likes watching them. Such a large scale coordinated behavior without any guidance of a leader caused a necessity for new explanations, resulting in the emergence of the science of complex systems. Some simple rules individual birds might be using, like staying away from neighbors and steering in the average direction of the neighbors turned out to be enough for simulating the large flocking behavior, which played an important role for understanding the power of simulation techniques in science. Nowadays, simulation techniques are widely used in the area of complex systems and in other science and engineering fields where analytic methods are not enough for studying detailed behavior. The unwillingness of electrons for occupying same quantum state that we mentioned in the previous paragraphs as the underlying reason of the concept of volume, makes the equations very hard to solve in the field of solid state physics where simulation techniques are used for solutions. On the other hand, easy to solve diffusion equation is enough when energy not having volume property is investigated.

We mentioned about the absence of a leader in the flocking behavior of birds. Such bottom up organization style where low level individuals are decision makers, started to replace usual top down organization style that we are familiar with in various diciplines. We started to see successful organization examples where the share holders waive their privileges in decision making and all members contribute in decision making process. In the case of open source software projects many independent developers share their modifications and additions in a software sharing platform as a result of their own decisions. The reviewing process of these contributions by other developers and in some projects by leaders result in a general progress.

In the bottom up organizations which work in the inverse direction of hierarchies, the relations between individuals are usually in the form networks. Graph theory which is a tool for investigating emergent properties of such network structures, considers networks as nodes and edges connecting them. In the organizations where these nodes are humans, average value and standard deviation of number of connecting edges are determining factors for the structure of the organization. An interesting property called as small world phenomenon was observed in the academic colobration networks where scientists and mathemacians are the nodes and the colobrations are the edges. The structure of such networks allows reaching an arbitrary node from a randomly choosen initial node in 5–6 steps. Despite the fact that this small world phenomenon, which is also observed in social networks and World Wide Web, is not a general network property, it emerges in most of the functional networks.

Beside its usage in explaining observable objects and behaviors, emergence also became a tool in studying physics theories determining the behavior of fundamental particles. Values of various physical constants such as the gravitational constant could only be calculated by experimental methods. These empirical constants are added to emergent physics theories in order to match their predictions with experiments. Determining these physical constant values as emergent properties just like the physics theories themselves is one of the main purpose of modern theoretical physics. Theory of everything which will explain nature in all scales completely as emergent properties and behaviors is the dream of all physicists. We don’t know if such a theory of everything is possible or not. However, our intuition tells us that even such a theory of everything would not able to explain initial emergence. When we have a look at the history of scientific development we see that intuition came out to be wrong many times which should make us optimistic about such an emergent explanation of initial formation. If we make an analogy between theory of everything and the emergent formation of complex consepts starting from number 1 which we discussed above, we can think the initial emergence as formation of number 1 out of number 0 where the combining operation wouldn’t help. This analogy is helpful for understanding the difficulty of the problem of initial emergence. The argument about this problem being hard to resolve or it is impossible to resolve is also interesting as the problem itself.

Nazım Dugan

21 September 2019

(*) More information about concept of system can be found in my previous article On the concept of a System.

(**) The reason of gravity being mentioned separately is that it is still not unified with other forces explained by the standard model of particle physics. The unification of gravity and other forces is an active research area in modern physics.