More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

article

Toward a formalization of emergence

Author:

Aleš KubíkAuthors Info & Claims

Artificial Life, Volume 9, Issue 1

Pages 41 - 65

https://doi.org/10.1162/106454603321489518

Published: 01 December 2002 Publication History

Abstract

Emergence is a concept widely used in the sciences, the arts, and engineering. Some effort has been made to formalize it, but it is used in various contexts with different meanings, and a unified theory of emergence is still distant. The ultimate goal of a theory of emergence should include using emergence to model, design, or predict the behavior of multiagent systems. The author proposes a formal definition of a basic type of emergence using a language-theoretic and grammar systems approach. It is shown which types of phenomena can be modeled in this sense and what the consequences are for other more complex phenomena.

References

[1]

1. Ablowitz, R. (1939). The theory of emergence. Philosophy of Science, 6, 1-16.]]

[2]

2. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.]]

[3]

3. Baas, N. A. (1997). Self-Organization and Higher Order Structures. In F. Schweitzer (Ed.), Self-organization of complex structures: From individual to collective dynamics (pp. 71-82). New York: Gordon and Breach.]]

[4]

4. Baas, N. A. (1994). Emergence, hierarchies, and hyperstructures. In C. G. Langton (Ed.), Artificial life III, Santa Fe Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Proc. Vol. XVII (pp. 515-537). Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley.]]

[5]

5. Bedau, M. A. (forthcoming). Downward causation and the autonomy of weak emergence. Principia, special issue on emergence.]]

[6]

6. Bedau, M. A. (1997). Weak emergence. In J. Tomberlin (Ed.), Philosophical perspectives: Mind, causation, and world, Vol. 11. (pp. 375-399). Malden. MA: Blackwell.]]

[7]

7. Berlekamp, E. R., Conway, J. H., & Guy, R. K. (1982). Winning ways (for your mathematical plays), Vol. 2, New York: Academic Press.]]

[8]

8. Bonabeau, E., Dessalles, J. L., & Grumbach, A. (1995). Characterizing emergent phenomena (1): A critical review. Revue Internationale de Systéémique, 9, 327-346.]]

[9]

9. Bonabeau, E., Dessalles, J. L., & Grumbach, A. (1995). Characterizing emergent phenomena (2): A critical review. Revue Internationale de Systéémique, 9, 347-371.]]

[10]

10. Brooks, R. A. (1991). Intelligence without reason. In Proceedings of the 12th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI '91) (pp. 569-595). San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.]]

[11]

11. Campbell, D. T. (1974). Downward causation in hierarchically organized biological systems. In F. J. Afala & T. Dobzhansky (Eds.), Studies in the philosophy of biology. New York: Macmillan.]]

[12]

12. Cariani, P. (1998). Towards an evolutionary semiotics: The emergence of new sign-functions in organisms and devices. In G. Van de Vijver, S. Salthe, & M. Delpos (Eds.), Evolutionary Systems (pp. 359-377). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.]]

[13]

13. Cariani, P. (1997). Emergence of new signal-primitives in neural networks. Intellectica, 2, 95-143.]]

[14]

14. Cariani, :P. (1989). On the design of devices with emergent semantic functions. Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton.]]

Digital Library

[15]

15. Chomsky, N. (1956). Three models for the description of language. IRE Transactions on Information Theory, 2, 113-124.]]

[16]

16. Csuhaj-Varjú, E. (1995). Eco-grammar systems: Recent results and perspectives. In Gh. Paun (Ed.), Artificial life: Grammatical models (pp. 79-103). Bucharest, Romania: Black Sea University Press.]]

[17]

17. Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Dassow, J., Kelemen, J., & Paun, Gh. (1994). Grammar systems--A grammatical approach to distribution and cooperation. London: Gordon and Breach.]]

Digital Library

[18]

18. Csuhaj-Varjú, E., & Kelemen, J. (1989). Cooperating grammar systems: A syntactical framework for blackboard model of problem solving. In Proceedings of the Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information Control System of Robots: AIICSR'89 (pp. 121-127). New York: Elsevier.]]

[19]

19. Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Kelemen, J., Kelemenová, A., & Paun, Gh. (1994). Eco-grammar)-systems. A preview. In R. Trappl (Ed.), Cybernetics and systems '94 (pp. 941-948). Singapore: World Scientific.]]

[20]

20. Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Kelemen, J., Kelemenová, A., & Paun, Gh. (1996). Eco-grammar systems: A grammatical framework for life-like interactions. Artificial Life, 3, 1-28.]]

[21]

21. Dassow, J., Freund, R., & Paun, Gh. (1995). Cooperating array grammar systems. International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, 9, 1029-1053.]]

[22]

22. Davis, R., & Smith, R. G. (1988). Negotiation as a metaphor for distributed problem solving. In A. H. Bond & L. Gasser (Eds.), Reading in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.]]

Digital Library

[23]

23. Dorigo, M., Bonabeau, E., & Theraulaz, G. (1999). Swarm intelligence: From natural to artificial systems. New York: Oxford University Press.]]

Digital Library

[24]

24. Fernau, H., Freund, R., & Holzer, M. (1998). Regulated array grammars of finite index, Part 1: Theoretical investigations. In Gh. Paun & A. Salomaa (Eds.), Grammatical models of multi-agent systems. Reading, UK: Gordon and Breach.]]

[25]

25. Finin, T., Fritzson, R., McKay, D., & McEntire, R. (1994). KQML as an agent communication language. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM '94). ACM Press.]]

Digital Library

[26]

26. Freund, R. (2000). Array grammar systems. Journal of Automata, Languages and Combinatorics, 5, 13-29.]]

Digital Library

[27]

27. Gardner, M. (1983). Wheels, life, and other mathematical amusements. New York: Freeman.]]

[28]

28. Goertzel, B. (1994). Chaotic logic: Language, thought and reality from the perspective of complex systems science. New York: Plenum Press.]]

Digital Library

[29]

29. Gross, D., & McMullin, B. (2002). Is it the right ansatz? Artificial Life, 7, 355-366.]]

Digital Library

[30]

30. Hillis, D. (1988). Intelligence as an emergent behavior; or the songs of Eden. Daedalus, Winter, 175-189.]]

Digital Library

[31]

31. Holland, J. H. (1998). Emergence: From chaos to order. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.]]

Digital Library

[32]

32. Hölldobler, B., & Wilson, E. O. (1994). Journey to the ants. Belknap Press/Harvard University Press.]]

[33]

33. Kelemen, J. (2000). A note on colonies as post-modular systems with emergent behavior. In R. Freund & A. Ketemenováá (Eds.), Grammars Systems 2000. Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Grammar Systems (pp. 203-213). Opava, Czech Republic: Silesian University.]]

[34]

34. Klee, R. L. (1984). Micro-determinism and concepts of emergence. Philosophy of Sciences, 51, 44-63.]]

[35]

35. Kubík, A. (2002). Probabilistic grammar systems as a tool to model stochastic emergence. In D. Polani, J. Kim, & T. Martinetz (Eds.), Abstracting and synthesizing the principles of living systems. 5tb German Workshop on Artificial Life (pp. 169-180). Berlin: Akademische Verl.-Gesellschaft.]]

[36]

36. Kubík, A. (2001). On emergence in evolutionary multiagent systems. In J. Kelemen & P. Sosik (Eds.), Advances in Artificial Life. Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 326-337). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.]]

Digital Library

[37]

37. Labrou. Y., & Finin, T. (1997). Semantics and conversations for an agent communication language. In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI '97), Nagoya, Japan.]]

[38]

38. Langton, C. G. (1989). Artificial life. In C. G. Langton (Ed.), Artificial Life. Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Proc. Vol. VI (pp. 1-48). Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley.]]

[39]

9. Lucas, C. (1999). Complexity philosophy as a computing paradigm. Preprint of a talk presented at the "Self-Organising Systems-Future Prospects for Computing" Workshop held at UMIST. 28-29 October, in conjunction with the EPSRC "Emerging Computing" Networks Initiative. www. calresco, org/lucas/compute, htm.]]

[40]

40. Mataric´, M. (1994). Interaction and intelligent behavior. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.]]

Digital Library

[41]

41. Minsky, M. (1986). The Society of Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.]]

Digital Library

[42]

42. Morgan, C. L. (1923). Emergent Evolution. London: Northgate and Williams.]]

[43]

43. Pepper. S. (1926). Emergence. Journal of Philosophy, 23, 241-245.]]

[44]

44. Poundstone. W. (1985). The Recursiw Universe. Chicago: Contemporary Books.]]

[45]

45. Rasmussen, S. Baas, N. A., Mayer, B., Nilsson. M., & Olesen. M. W. (2002). Ansatz for dynamical hierarchies. Artificial Life, 7, 329-354.]]

Digital Library

[46]

46. Rasmussen. S. Baas N A., Mayer. B., Nilsson, M. & Olesen, M. W. (2002). Defence of the Ansatz for dynamical hierarchies. Artificial Life, 7, 367-374.]]

Digital Library

[47]

47. Ronald, E A., Sipper, M., & Capcarrèèrre, M. S. (1999). Design, observation, surprise! A test of emergence. Artificial Life, 5, 225-239.]]

Digital Library

[48]

48. Ronald. E. A., & Sipper. M. (2000). Engineering, emergent engineering, and artificial life: Unsurprise. unsurprising surprise, and surprising surprise. In M. A. Bedau. J. S. Caskill, N. H Packard, & S. Rasmussen (Eds.), Artificial Life VII (pp. 523-528). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.]]

[49]

49. Rosen, R. (1985). Anticipatory Systems. New York: Pergamon Press.]]

[50]

50. Rosenschein, J. S., & Zlotkin, G. (1994). Rules of encounter: Designing conventions for automated negotiation among computers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.]]

Digital Library

[51]

51. Rozenberg, G., & Salomaa, A. (Eds.). (1997). The handbook of formal languages, 3 volumes. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.]]

Digital Library

[52]

52. Salomaa, A. (1973). Formal languages. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.]]

Digital Library

[53]

53. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.]]

[54]

54. Simovici, D. A., & Tenney, R. L. (1999). Theory of formal languages with applications. Singapore: World Scientific.]]

[55]

55. van Leeuwen, J., & Wiedermann, J. (2001). The Turing machine paradigm in contemporary computing. In B. Engquist & W. Schmid (Eds.), Mathematics unlimited-2001 and beyond (pp. 1139-1155). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.]]

[56]

56. Wooldridge, M. (2002). An introduction to multiagent systems. London: Wiley.]]

Digital Library

Cited By

Szabo CRossetti MHunter S(2024)Complex Systems Modeling and AnalysisProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3712729.3712736(87-100)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3712729.3712736
Dahia SSzabo C(2024)Detecting Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems: A Machine Learning ApproachProceedings of the 38th ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation10.1145/3615979.3656064(81-87)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615979.3656064
Szabo CCastro RDenil JSanchez S(2023)Resilience and Complexity in Socio-Cyber-Physical SystemsProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3643142.3643197(660-670)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3643142.3643197
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Toward a formalization of emergence
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Knowledge representation and reasoning
      1. Nonmonotonic, default reasoning and belief revision
2. Theory of computation
  1. Theory and algorithms for application domains
    1. Machine learning theory
      1. Inductive inference

Recommendations

Formalization of emergence in multi-agent systems
SIGSIM PADS '13: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation

Emergence is a distinguishing feature in systems, especially when complexity grows with the number of components, interactions, and connectivity. There is immense interest in emergence, and a plethora of definitions from philosophy to sciences. Despite ...
A response to "Genetic programming and emergence"

Banzhaf (Genet Program Evol Mach, 2013 ) raises some interesting points about emergence in the context of genetic programming. However, his central tenet, that genetic programming is an example of top-down emergence, is invalidated by the fact that the ...
Emergence and Adaptation

I investigate the relationship between adaptation, as defined in evolutionary theory through natural selection, and the concept of emergence. I argue that there is an essential correlation between the former, and "emergence" defined in the field of ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Artificial Life

Artificial Life Volume 9, Issue 1

Winter 2003

92 pages

ISSN:1064-5462

EISSN:1530-9185

Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

MIT Press

Cambridge, MA, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2002

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

26
Total Citations
View Citations
0
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 02 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Szabo CRossetti MHunter S(2024)Complex Systems Modeling and AnalysisProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3712729.3712736(87-100)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3712729.3712736
Dahia SSzabo C(2024)Detecting Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems: A Machine Learning ApproachProceedings of the 38th ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation10.1145/3615979.3656064(81-87)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3615979.3656064
Szabo CCastro RDenil JSanchez S(2023)Resilience and Complexity in Socio-Cyber-Physical SystemsProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3643142.3643197(660-670)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3643142.3643197
Szabo CSon YHaas P(2019)Complex systems modeling and analysisProceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/3400397.3400517(1495-1503)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3400397.3400517
Zeigler B(2017)Emergence of human languageProceedings of the Symposium on Modeling and Simulation of Complexity in Intelligent, Adaptive and Autonomous Systems10.5555/3108414.3108419(1-9)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3108414.3108419
O'toole ENallur VClarke S(2017)Decentralised Detection of Emergence in Complex Adaptive SystemsACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems10.1145/301959712:1(1-31)Online publication date: 6-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3019597
Zeigler BMuzy AMittal SRisco Martin JElfrey PCetinkaya DSeveringhaus R(2016)Some modeling & simulation perspectives on emergence in system-of-systemsProceedings of the Modeling and Simulation of Complexity in Intelligent, Adaptive and Autonomous Systems 2016 (MSCIAAS 2016) and Space Simulation for Planetary Space Exploration (SPACE 2016)10.5555/2962664.2962675(1-4)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2962664.2962675
Asgari AHassani KLee W(2016)Simulating collective intelligence of bio-inspired competing agentsExpert Systems with Applications: An International Journal10.1016/j.eswa.2016.03.01656:C(256-267)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.eswa.2016.03.016
Birdsey LSzabo CTeo Y(2015)Twitter knowsProceedings of the 2015 Winter Simulation Conference10.5555/2888619.2889151(4009-4020)Online publication date: 6-Dec-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2888619.2889151
Szabo CTeo Y(2015)Formalization of Weak Emergence in Multiagent SystemsACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation10.1145/281550226:1(1-25)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2815502
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

Figures

Tables

Media

View Issue’s Table of Contents