Analysis Of Self-Organizational Systems By Steven Johnson

In the article ‘Emergence: The connected lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software’ Steven Johnson argues that the self-organizational systems are made up of many interacting agents who aren’t individually smart. In this text Johnson draws comparisons between ant colonies and the internet; he highlights how complexity is organized from the bottom to top, and how it results in a lack of hierarchy or rules, which impose onto a system from a minority. There are however basic rules that govern these local relations that in turn coexist with the organization and the emergence of a complex and sophisticated behavior as a whole. Johnson links the way in which ant colonies obey a simple set of rules that they learn from one another with how they are able to produce an orderly working society.

In the first chapter ‘Here Comes Everybody’ he introduces his theory that these self-organizing systems are a result of the combination of many unintelligent interacting agents that are able to combine into a highly intelligent system.

He is able to relate these social structures to human society by looking at the way our cities are organized. He links the work of Jane Jacobs by determining the patterns of ant colonies to the patterns sustained by cities over centuries,

"Pattern amplifying machine; its neighborhoods are a way of measuring and expressing the repeated behavior of larger collectivities - capturing information about group behavior, and sharing that behavior with the group." (Johnson 2001:40)

Johnson connects these ideas of emergent organizations to city development. Urban organization shows patterns formed by lower-level interactions. While top to bottom organizations are present.

Whether it may be agents or human indiv...

... middle of paper ...

...ion of patterns of emergence, however he lacks the unwillingness to differentiate (weak when applying the theories to modern technological advances) between spontaneous emergence and evolved systems in science.

In conclusion Johnson has been able to relate much of the current society today, it has given a greater understanding and introduction to a new field of thought and a new perception of the modern world. ‘Emergence’ has continued to educate and guide the course of everyday life and determine how science and technology can be related to the modern world. It changes the perception of the reader and serves as a new field of thought and makes you look at subjects differently, in means of how a host of systems operate; this is a useful spotlight on an important process into contemporary living and could nonetheless be more stringent with information academically.