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evanstiegel's picture

questions answered and unanswered

These were my questions at the beginning of the course. 

  1. Does emergence have a concrete definition? 
  2. What are some examples of emergence in nature?
  3. How do ant colonies display emergence?

Looking back on these questions allows me to see how my view of emergence has evolved over the course of the semester.  I believed things that displayed emergent properties were only things like that emerged from ant colonies.  I now understand that emergent systems are everywhere. My new understanding of emergence has allowed me to view things in different manner, making me break  things down into their components and forcing me to ask new questions about many things I used to take for granted. 

If I could ask a few more questions now, I think they would be:

1.) Is there a limit to what we can model? (We did in fact model many things I thought couldn't be modeled. But there must be a line we can't cross somewhere, right?

2.) If the big bang happened all over again, would everything today be the same.  (We talked about this a little, but I believe we never really fleshed it out enough)

3.) What problems can be attacked by an understanding of emergent systems? (This is paramount.  How can we as a class take we learned and apply it to problems our world is facing?)

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