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            At the beginning of the semester, I was self-conscious about how hazy my initial ideas about the concept of “emergence” were.  I was worried that everyone else would have a “right answer” and that it would differ from my own ideas, so one of my initial questions was “What does "emergence" actually mean to different people?”  We quickly began to answer that question.  Though the concept of emergence has become only slightly less hazy in my mind, it is now clear to me that “emergence” can describe phenomena that occur pretty much anywhere you look.  People find their own meaning and significance based on their own notions about emergence, and while I do not believe that emergence exists only because beings capable of conscious thought are around to observe it, I do believe that we thinkers dramatically influence what it means to be emergent.  “Emergence” is a tool we can use to make sense of how the universe works.  I used to think that all tools needed to be standardized, or at least commonly understood, to be useful.  Now, I think that emergence is an example of a tool that works because there are so many different versions of it.  It can be stretched and bent and twisted until our thoughts make sense to ourselves and eventually to others. 

            My other questions centered more on the practical applications of the course, especially computer models.  Having very little background in computer science, I was skeptical about the idea that I, with such limited resources, could create models that were useful or applicable to the real world.  As a biologist and a geologist, I like to be able to put theories into practice, but I couldn’t see how that would be possible in this case.  To a large extent, I have yet to be convinced that models can accurately describe actual living systems.  More specifically, I am not sure I personally will ever have the skill or the equipment to build my own models or even answer my own questions with any degree of satisfaction.  Especially after having worked on a program that attempts to model large biological populations, I feel like so many of the parameters we set in the NetLogo world are arbitrary features we employ only to “get it to work.” 

            This brings up our extensive conversations about the limitations of deterministic systems and whether there are processes that cannot be done deterministically.  From our work in NetLogo, it would be easy to conclude that yes, in fact there are many things that cannot be done deterministically.  But then I remember how extremely limited I am in my programming skills and it seems more plausible that if we tried hard enough we could actually do anything we wanted.  

            The most important question that I had that remains unanswered is whether it is possible that the universe as we know it is a deterministic system.  As a class, the general consensus seemed to be that no, the universe cannot be the way it is without randomness.  As before, I remain unconvinced.  I think this is another example of us not being capable of knowing the answer.  Instead of thinking about the nature of random vs deterministic systems, we should think about the influence of time on these systems.  Time is the only factor we cannot manipulate (as far as we know - my inner sci-fi fan remains hopeful) but I have a feeling it would make all the difference.  As I mentioned in the forum for week 3 of this course, it is very plausible that if we were to re-run the Big Bang exactly the way it happened, INCLUDING setting it at the exact same time, it could be a deterministic process.  However, until we are able to manipulate time, we won’t know for sure.

            After that long-winded post, I suppose that I can now sum up what I learned about emergence in three words: Anything is possible.  And now I’m off to work on my time machine…