A
Affordance
What a system can do or experience.
Art
Emergence in the cultural domain. The process by which the multitude of inputs into a work of art–physical, technical, sensory, aesthetic, psychological, sociological, economic, historical, social, philosophical, formal, ethical, cultural, etc–are integrated into one epitomizes emergence at its most comprehensive level.
Attractor
the notional form that a given nonlinear dynamical system or algorithmic process explores through its iterations. “Strange” attractors are ones that provide no terminus or point of rest for their enactment or their computation. Their characteristic shape is fractal and selfsimilar, and they display scaling features
Autocatalysis
a key element in self-organizing systems, where a system itself generates a structure that acts as a catalyst. Example: a hurricane whose rotational structure creates high energy or moisture gradients that in turn maintain the hurricane itself. In biological systems the practice of eating is itself autocatalytic.
Autopoesis
the condition of any self-organizing system, literally “self-making.” Basin of attraction: describes the condition of a system all of whose possible behaviors return to a common set of outcomes. Emergence happens when a threshold is crossed through an iterative accumulation of some parameter, and the system finds a lip over which some of its outcomes can escape. Example: convergent evolution in sharks and dolphins, and in anteaters, pangolins, and aardvarks, where different genetic lines enter the same ecological basin of attraction.
B
Basin of Attraction
Describes the condition of a system all of whose possible behaviors return…
Bifurcation
the crisis in which a threshold is crossed and two possible futures for a system divide from each other and must coexist or be destroyed.
Blob
Laura Kim’s useful term for an unorganized collection of connected elements (?). It avoids terms like “group,” which implies a certain regularity, and “system,” which is already organized, and “collection” itself, which implies a collector. Blobs cross thresholds to create emergent systems.
Branchiness
a term loosely applied to a conception of time in which a given state of affairs can have more than one outcome, that one cause can have different effects, and that the future is inherently different from the past. Opposed to the one-line deterministic universe envisaged by
C
Catalysis
the process by which an extraneous element in a group, blob, or emergent system enables paths or affordances, such as viable energy paths or new combinations that would otherwise be closed, to take place. The term originates in chemistry but is readily applicable to many fields from physics to the ecological, social, and aesthetic disciplines.
Complexity
characterizes the behavior of a system whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, meaning there is no reasonable higher instruction to define the various possible interactions. The term is generally used to characterize something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways, culminating in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of its parts. the general term for all systems, i.e. blobs that involve multiple components with feedback among them.
D
Dynamical System
a system whose changes maintain its form as a system, i.e. its components interact so as to preserve their continued interaction. Dependent upon whether its feedbacks are positive or negative or both, such a system can be homeostatic or evolutionary.
E
Emergence
“Emergent” describes the propensity for any high energy, far-from-equilibrium system to self-organize in ways that cannot be predicted from knowing its individual components. Emergence is closely related to self-organization and complexity and synonymous with evolution. Spiral galaxies, hydrothermal systems animals, ecosystems, oceanic currents and tides, hurricanes, civilizations, political systems, economies, and war are some of the many examples of emergent phenomena, where low-level rules give rise to higher-level complexity. Entirely new properties and behaviors “emerge,” without direction and with characteristics that cannot be predicted from knowledge of the constituents alone. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
Epiphany
perhaps the experience of emergence when threshold-crossing occurs in the synaptic regime of the human brain at a certain point in time, and a vision or concept or realization self-organizes or sinters itself out of an existing state of metastability.
Evolution
Synonym for Emergence but more common for life. The iterative feedback system of inheritance, mutation, and selection that characterizes all biological phenomena.
F
Feedback
The reentry of all or part of the output of any process into its input. Originally, an engineering term for any system whose elements control each other and/or themselves.
Fractal
describes the whole class of shapes–different from Euclidean straight lines or Newtonian curves–that are ordered, self-similar, but non-repeating, characteristic of nonlinear dynamical processes in physical and biological processes or iterative self-referential computational procedures.
H
Hierophany
emergence in the spiritual domain. The experience of chairos, the sense of all times contracted into a moment, often described by anthropologists as the crossing of a shamanic threshold into the state of “illo tempore,” can be described as an intense form of psychological emergence.
Holon
any grouping that exceeds the sum of its parts. Adjective: holistic. Iteration: the fundamental element of reality in time, variously characterized as waves, repetition, rhythm, harmonics, vibration, temporal succession, history, endurance, etc. Iteration can simply maintain a state of affairs or provide a basis for repetition-with-a-difference, enabling bifurcation, autopoesis and thus emergence to take place. Linear: in emergence circles, “linear” is a loose term for sequential processes or reasonings that are bound by logical rules of inference or causal constraints that allow no alternative results.
I
Iteration
The fundamental element of reality in time, involving repetition…
L
Linear
Sequential processes bound by logical rules with no alternatives…
M
Metastability
the condition of readiness or approach to a threshold required for emergence to take place.
N
Network
describes various structures of connection among the elements of a system, such as nodes, hierarchies, etc.
Nonlinear
in Emergence, a loose term for transformations or implications that are global, offer more than one degree of freedom, or cross thresholds of complexity.
O
Onto-epistemological
a philosophical term describing an entity or system, whose state of information or knowledge is a necessary element of its existence. Example: quantum coherence and wave-function collapse as described by Heisenberg and Schrödinger. The term implies that in some sense the universe mutually “knows” itself into existence (since the fundamental unit of information is the photon, and all matter and energy is resolvable into light)
P
Paradigm Change
emergence in the cognitive domain.
Partial Dimensionality
the degree to which an entity with a given number of dimensions, like a line or plane, can by iteration of its shape amount to something of a higher dimensionality. Example: a Sierpinsky carpet. Example: a flower-petal whose rim is populated with more new cells than would make a plane, and must then frill into a shape with three, not two, dimensions. The degree of such an increase of dimensionality is quantifiable and a useful metric. Such an increase often plays a central role in emergence.
Phase Change
In thermodynamics, the crossing of a threshold between any of the four phases of matter–solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. The concept carries over to changes among crystalline, amorphous, glass, colloidal states, etc.
S
Scaling
The relation between large structures and smaller ones in a system…
Self-organization
the differentiating of function that occurs in an autopoetic system among its components that enables stability or controllably gradual change, preserving key identifying characteristics of its umwelt.
Sintering
one type of threshold-crossing, in metallurgy literally a process of annealing a material by heat and pressure, in principle driven by the excess of free energy of a system triggering several transport paths. Sintering is the process of fusing particles together into one solid mass by using a combination of pressure and heat without melting the materials. Common particles that are sintered together include metal, ceramic, plastic, and other various materials. Sometimes used to describe the quantum computation of factors. The key idea is that transformations by sintering are global rather than linear.
Social Evolution
emergence in the social domain. (“Revolution” can apply either to emergence or to the destructive collapse of emergent order.)
Synergy
is surely always a factor in emergence. But there are existing synergies that are not emergence, and are indeed often important controlling factors in homeostasis. Emergence seem to happen when a partly chaotic blob of interacting elements, blindly and randomly exploring the possible information space, discovers a new possible synergetic combination of activities, a new “basin of attraction” and system for maintaining homeostasis.
System
any blob whose components stably affect each other in some way.
T
Temporal Umwelt
what kind of temporal distinctions apply to something: can it have an earlier or later state; does it have a direction in time, and if so, which; can it have a past or history, a distinct present, and a possible future?
Thermodynamics
The science of the relationship between heat, work, and energy. Thermodynamics deals with the equilibrium transfer of energy from one place to another and from one form to another. Thermodynamics is the antithesis of Emergence because it focuses on equilibrium processes and these systems are predictable.
Threshold
a point where a quantitative change in a collection (see “blob”) transforms into a qualitative change. Example: wetness is not a property of water molecules until a sufficient number of them is present together. Boiling is an important fluid-gas threshold.
U
Umwelt
the world of a given entity or organism: what it can do and what it can experience: its affordances