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The Emergence class was probably one of my favorite classes in college. It helped me think in ways I never did before.  One of my things I liked most about this class is that, there was not a right answer to most of our questions. Students often stop themselves from sharing their views if they feel that they might be wrong in what they are saying. Since our class discussions were really open-ended, it allowed everyone to really develop their ideas and opinions. I feel like I have always thought more technically, and I got to think more philosophically in this class for the first time. My questions at the beginning of the semester were pretty technical too, it seems:

1.  How can we model and emergent system?
2.  Can wesolve real-world problems this way?
3.  How can we address exceptions when we are building a model of a system?

Netlogo seems to be the answer to all these questions – definitely the answer to question 1. A few simple interactions can create complex outcomes. I am not sure if we can “solve” problems by modeling them, but we can definitely get a better picture/idea about it. It can give us results we were not expecting and help us think deeper about the problems we are modeling. Can we address exceptions? I am sure we can with the help of if-else statements in Netlogo!

At the end of the semester, I don’t think I would ask the same questions, since I seem to kind of have found answers to those already. The class has opened up new doors for me though, and some of the questions I have now are:

1. Can we model anything and everything? How would we model the creation of the universe and Big Bang?
2. Can we build models that can think without us (people) giving any form of instruction on how to think?
3. How can we model emergent systems without the use of Netlogo?

While these questions might have been somewhat answered for some, I feel that I would like to dig deeper into them nevertheless, especially the last question. A major part of our class dealt with Netlogo, and I wonder what it would have been like without this tool, for example with the use of a different tool with fewer limitations (like using any available programming language, say C?). I think that it might be so open that it would probably make it very difficult to narrow our scope and think simple. I enjoyed thinking simple rather than complex in this class. It helped me understand emergent systems and I really enjoyed every moment of the class!