Startup DreamersStartup Dreamers
  • Home
  • Startup
  • Money & Finance
  • Starting a Business
    • Branding
    • Business Ideas
    • Business Models
    • Business Plans
    • Fundraising
  • Growing a Business
  • More
    • Innovation
    • Leadership
Trending

Composing Wedding Speeches Via Generative AI

May 17, 2025

The Recession Mistake That Cost Me $1.5 Million

May 17, 2025

6 Myths That Are Blocking You From This $200 Billion Opportunity

May 17, 2025
Facebook Twitter Instagram
  • Newsletter
  • Submit Articles
  • Privacy
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Startup DreamersStartup Dreamers
  • Home
  • Startup
  • Money & Finance
  • Starting a Business
    • Branding
    • Business Ideas
    • Business Models
    • Business Plans
    • Fundraising
  • Growing a Business
  • More
    • Innovation
    • Leadership
Subscribe for Alerts
Startup DreamersStartup Dreamers
Home » What Is Emergence In Complex Systems — And How Physics Can Explain It
Innovation

What Is Emergence In Complex Systems — And How Physics Can Explain It

adminBy adminJuly 28, 20240 ViewsNo Comments6 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

The concept of ‘emergence’ in complex systems has been the subject of extensive study and is important in the natural and physical sciences and, increasingly, in engineering. There is a critical distinction between a ‘complex system’ compared to a merely ‘complicated system’ in this context.

Emergent effects of complex systems are, broadly speaking, phenomena present in the system that are not shared by and cannot be explained by an understanding or considerations of the system’s constituent components in isolation. This is often expressed as the ‘whole is more than the sum of its parts’.

For example, the murmurations of flocks of starlings, the coordination and formation of giant bait balls of fish, or the construction of ant megacities. And in our own brains, the ‘big’ mysteries: how does the mind emerge from the physical brain? What is self-awareness? And, even, what is consciousness?

How Physical Constraints Produce Emergent Effects

A detailed understanding of the physics and mathematics of how such emergent effects occur is still the subject of much intense scientific and philosophical research. There are no, as of yet, broadly accepted accepted mathematical models or frameworks that universally capture, describe, and predict emergence across physically distinct complex systems. Nonetheless, a lot of progress has been made. In some cases entire research institutes have devoted themselves to this subject. The fabled Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico founded in 1984 in particular was set up to study complexity and emergence.

Despite this, there is an intuition behind it all that can be conceptualized. Everyday physical systems (i.e. non-quantum mechanical) are subject to the physical make up they are composed of. That make up necessarily introduces physical constraints to the system that ultimately impose different functional capabilities and limits.

In other words, ‘things’ are made of ‘stuff’, and what those things do, how they do them, and the limits of what they can accomplish are all the result of how the stuff they are made from interacts and operates.

At any arbitrary scale of physical organization, whether designed and engineered or naturally occurring, a physical object will do whatever it was designed to do or can do simply because it reflects the physics at that scale. And it will do so independent of whatever else other things around it are doing. Of course, it can interact with and be influenced by other similar things to itself or different things in its environment. Such interactions may, of course, affect how the thing under consideration behaves. But such interactions are nonetheless simply themselves other physical constraints, which typically includes the back and forth transfer of information.

Neurons in the Brain as an Example

This is all rather abstract, so consider a concrete example: the human brain. The make up of the brain spans many spatial scales of organization. From genes and molecules to cells to networks of cells to networks of brain regions. So let’s pick an intuitively recognizable scale at which we can distinguish an individual ‘thing’. A physically independent component at a particular scale of organization within the brain.

Consider individual neuron brain cells as the ‘thing’. As mentioned, there are many scales of organization and function below the scale of a neuron. These include genes, molecules, protein complexes and ‘molecular machines’ such as ion channels. A neuron is itself composed of computationally and functionally distinct and independent parts: its dendrites, the initial segment, the axon, and synaptic arborizations (we will not go into the details of each part here). There are also many scales of organization above a neuron. Neurons connect with each other to form local neural circuits, which combine to form structures such as cortical columns. Eventually distinct anatomical and functional brain regions connect up at the scale of the whole brain.

But viewed as a distinct individual ‘thing’, a neuron is made up of wet and squishy physical substrates organized in specific ways that support certain kinds of processes that functionally perform certain kinds computation. Of course, a neuron is interacting with, being influenced by, and influencing a myriad of other things, including other neurons. But an individual neuron does what a neuron does simply because at the end of the day it is physically built to be a neuron. It is not aware of its physical make up  —  it just physically is what it is. And it does not care what other things its interacting with are doing or how they are doing it. It just interacts because its physical make up allows it to.

However, even though a ‘thing’ or component of a system, such as a single neuron of the approximately 85 billion neurons in the brain, acts independently from all other things around it and is not aware of its own physical make up or what it is doing, it is necessarily contributing to the greater whole — to the system . How? By passing and contributing information to a scale of organization within the system that is one level up.

The critical concept here is that the information that a component passes along to the next level up results in a self initiated re-organization of the collective integration of all the information from all the participating components in such a way that it only makes sense and contextually exists at that higher level.

Put more succinctly, the output of those components essentially self re-organizes one level of organization up in the system up resulting in a new functional context for that information. Such self re-organization is not mysterious or magical, but rather is nothing more than the product of whatever the physical make up of the things that make up the components at that higher level of organization. Similar to the components that contribute information from the lower level, this higher level is subject to its own physical make up and constraints, and acts independent of anything else around it, not cognizant of where that information came from, how or why it was re-organized.

For example, the learning and information processing that a neural circuit can accomplish can only be defined and only makes sense when we consider the neural circuit as its own ‘thing’. It has no context if we just consider the firing patterns of the individual neurons that contribute to the circuit.

The information that results from the physical processes at one level seems to be passed on and re-organizes by following a path of ‘least resistance’ naturally resulting from the hierarchical constraints imposed by the physics that makes up the system (or collection of systems).

So given this physical intuition about emergence, how does the transfer and self re-organization of information across the physical and functional scales of the brain ultimately result in self-referential emergent properties such as self-awareness and consciousness? Well, despite everything that has been written on the subject, that really is still ‘magic’, at least for the foreseeable future.

Read the full article here

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Articles

Composing Wedding Speeches Via Generative AI

Innovation May 17, 2025

Hedra, Cartwheel, And Schemata Raise Cash While Google And Meta Show Their Hands

Innovation May 16, 2025

Today’s ‘Wordle’ #1426 Hints, Clues And Answer For Thursday, May 15th

Innovation May 15, 2025

Today’s ‘Wordle’ #1425 Hints, Clues And Answer For Wednesday, May 14th

Innovation May 14, 2025

‘NYT Mini’ Crossword Clues And Answers For Tuesday, May 13

Innovation May 13, 2025

An AI Space Company Is Born

Innovation May 12, 2025
Add A Comment

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Editors Picks

Composing Wedding Speeches Via Generative AI

May 17, 2025

The Recession Mistake That Cost Me $1.5 Million

May 17, 2025

6 Myths That Are Blocking You From This $200 Billion Opportunity

May 17, 2025

Hedra, Cartwheel, And Schemata Raise Cash While Google And Meta Show Their Hands

May 16, 2025

How to Build a Strong Brand With a Limited Budget

May 16, 2025

Latest Posts

How to Quit Your Job and Go All In on Your Side Hustle

May 16, 2025

Donald Trump’s UK Trade Deal Could Secure Jaguar’s Resurrection

May 16, 2025

Today’s ‘Wordle’ #1426 Hints, Clues And Answer For Thursday, May 15th

May 15, 2025

How I Built a Bulletproof Portfolio (And What Most People Get Wrong)

May 15, 2025

How to Build a Resilient Team That Thrives in Uncertainty

May 15, 2025
Advertisement
Demo

Startup Dreamers is your one-stop website for the latest news and updates about how to start a business, follow us now to get the news that matters to you.

Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest YouTube
Sections
  • Growing a Business
  • Innovation
  • Leadership
  • Money & Finance
  • Starting a Business
Trending Topics
  • Branding
  • Business Ideas
  • Business Models
  • Business Plans
  • Fundraising

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest business and startup news and updates directly to your inbox.

© 2025 Startup Dreamers. All Rights Reserved.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Press Release
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

GET $5000 NO CREDIT