Evoking a new way of thinking.
Key Vocabulary: Emergence
Emergence is the way novel and coherent structures, patterns
and properties arise out of a multiplicity of relatively
simple interactions. It is marked by radical novelty,
coherence or correlation, some property of "wholeness",
it evolves, and it can be perceived.
Emergence is a two directional property.
When an assemblage of items is organized into a coherent
entity with an identity of its own (note that such
organization is different from being an ordered assemblage),
new potentialities are created by virtue of this new identity
and at the same time each component thereof gives up some of
its prior potentialities which would be inconsistent with the
new organized identity if that component were to individually
express the same. In the opposite direction, when a
component part of an organized entity removes itself (or is
removed) from its membership in the identity of that entity it
both gains the potentialities which are created by
independence and it loses the potentialities which were only
possible as a part of the organized entity.
The easiest example of this is the process
of two people meeting (two separate units), entering into a
relationship (an assemblage of two independent parts),
marrying to form a family (creating a new organized entity),
acting as a family (expressing the potentialities of the new
organized entity), having children, fighting over the
inability of a family member to do as he/she pleases without
regard to the impact on the family (experiencing the
constraints and loss of [potentialities available when the
partners were single), separating (experimenting with going to
an assemblage and no longer an organized entity), divorcing,
and then each former partner resuming life as a single person
(though now with the added organized constraints and
possibilities which accompany the role of "parent").
Adapting to and dealing with emergence is
perhaps the most important task facing managers and
organizations. Indeed, it is one of the most important
cognitive tasks we all face.
"Every resultant is either a sum or a
difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their
directions are the same -- their difference, when their
directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly
traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and
commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead
of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of
one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a
co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike
its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it
cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference." (Lewes
1875)
"Common characteristics are: (1) radical
novelty (features not previously observed in systems); (2)
coherence or correlation (meaning integrated wholes that
maintain themselves over some period of time); (3) A global or
macro "level" (i.e. there is some property of "wholeness");
(4) it is the product of a dynamical process (it evolves); and
(5) it is "ostensive" (it can be perceived)." (Goldstein,
1999).
We all struggle to understand, adapt,
respond and manipulate changing conditions in our internal and
external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear
logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play
an important role, given people's ability to create order. But
such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed
boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same
organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent,
dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and
new patterns emerge. As the family example above
illustrates, adapting to emergence is a critical skill which
is not part of "common sense."
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See: (1) Goldstein, Jeffrey (1999),
"Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues", Emergence:
Complexity and Organization 1 (1): 49–72
(2) Lewes, G. H. (1875),
Problems of Life and Mind (First Series), 2, London: Trübner,
ISBN 1-4255-5578-0