The Emergence of Blogging

Recently I’ve read the book Emergence by Steven Johnson (who also writes a weblog).
In it he explains what emergence is, how we can recognize it, and how it might alter the way we work and live, now that we have entered a new phase in our existence: not only are we observing emergence as a phenomena, we are starting to use it. (p.21)

Emergence

Johnson uses several examples throughout his book, the neurons in our head, the way ant colonies go about their work, and how cities develop. These are complex systems that develop interesting behavioural patterns.

In the introduction Johnson cites Warren Weaver in explaining where the complexity realm can be located. Science in the past dealt predominantly with systems of a small number of variables. Based on that work, al in terms of direct causality, man made significant progress. With the advent of statistics it became possible to put a finger on systems with very large numbers of unrelated variables, such as the behaviour of molecules in gas or hereditary patterns, and healthinsurances (p. 46). But, says Weaver, this leaves a large field untouched. Between the small scale systems and the large ‘disorganized complexity’ of statistically approachable situations there lies the space of ‘organized complexity’ (p. 47):

much more than the mere number of variables is the fact that all these variables are interrelated…These problems, as contrasted with the disorganized situations with which statistics can cope, show the essential feature of organization. We will therefore refer to this group of problems as those of organized complexity.

When we relate this to the realms Dave Snowden distinguishes, than complexity is of the organized kind, whereas chaos is the disorganized variety of complexity. Both the knowable and known realms collapse into one, in Weavers description.

What Johnson tries to tell us is that emergence can account, and in fact does account, for a lot of situations that if we encounter them make us think someone or something is in control and deliberately chose a course of action. When we see patterns in design we assume a designer. We name the egg-laying ant queen, implicitly saying she’s in control of the entire colony. Where in fact she’s just laying eggs. But how else could ants operate in their organized manner, if not by being controlled by the queen. This thinking is of course shaped by the way we have organized things ourselves for most of the time: hierarchically, command and control based situations. When all you have is a hammer, everything quickly starts looking like a nail.

Then how does this organized character of emergent systems come about, if not through ‘pacer’ elements that provide control. One way is leaving trails of what you do. When someone comes across that trail it might alter his behaviour. If the trails become longer and the number of trails becomes bigger it might alter the behaviour of groups/systems. It’s how slime molds group together into a single entity, it is how neighbourhoods come into existence. Not Pacers, but Tracers. Not Top-down but Bottom-up. And although our minds might be wired to look for pacers, we are steadily learning how to think from the bottom-up. (p. 67)

Blogging is much like leaving longer traces, much the same way slime molds do. It creates traces we previously could not leave, and we are finding contacts because of it, that otherwise would have remained invisible to us.
What can we learn from natural emergence when looking to apply it to creating emergence ourselves? Johnson says:

If you’re building a system designed to learn from the ground level, a system where macro-intelligence and adaptability derive from local knowledge, there are five fundamental factors (p. 77)