Emergence
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Can anybody recommend a good book on emergence, or point to any websites that would be worth reading instead?
In particular I'm looking for studies of emergent properties of brains and their component parts.
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Emergence
Posted on: April 22, 2008 - 2:52pm
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Emergence
Can anybody recommend a good book on emergence, or point to any websites that would be worth reading instead? In particular I'm looking for studies of emergent properties of brains and their component parts.
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Depends on how technical you want it. What's your background like? Med, Comp Sci, Eng, hobby? Most of the good stuff is in computer science or neurology books. Comp sci mostly focuses more on function, and neurology mostly focuses on form.
I think to be safe I'll put myself in the 'hobby' category![Smiling Smiling](/modules/smileys/examples/001.gif)
I think one of the best approaches from the ground up is in Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science," which can be found at
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
It covers the theory behind emergence in terms of finite state machines and shows how a series of simple rules often lead to complex systems.
I'm currently reading "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" by Steven Johnson. It's a "pop-science" book, not technical at all, but is an interesting read and will help introduce the concepts of emergent behavior.
I'm currently writing my honours thesis on this subject. I'd suggest "Emergence: Contemporary readings in philosophy and science" edited by Mark Bedau and Paul Humphreys. "The Re-Emergence of Emergence:The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion" Edited by Paul Davies and Philip Clayton. "Emergence or Reduction?: Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism" by Ansgar Beckermann and Hans Flohr. Jaegwon Kim is a notable philosopher on the subject and Stuart Kauffman has written extensively on the subject so look for Kauffman's new book "Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason and Religion". I saw a lecture he gave about the book and he talks extensively about ontological emergence in it.