Emergence and Complexity
Emergence concerns behavior arising from interactions among parts. A system’s number of parts or complexity alone does not establish whether a particular behavior is emergent.
THE IDEA
Emergence and Complexity
A system can have many parts performing a designed function, while a small set of rules can support complicated patterns of interaction. Complexity and emergence describe different aspects of a system.
A nuclear power plant’s coordinated operation illustrates a designed result. That observation does not establish that every aspect of the plant is predictable or that emergent behavior is absent. In chess, basic movement rules allow players to develop complex strategies; the rules alone do not specify how a game will unfold.
When to use it
Software development: Recognizing that a simple set of coding principles can lead to emergent, unanticipated system behaviors.
Urban planning: Examining how individual driving rules and interactions among drivers can produce traffic patterns.
Business strategy: Examining how simple operating rules interact to produce organizational behavior.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Nuclear Power Plant
A nuclear power plant has many components designed to work together. Its intended operation illustrates coordinated engineering, without establishing that all interactions or failures are predictable.
Chess
Chess has basic rules for moving pieces, yet play produces complex strategies through interactions among pieces and players. The rules allow many possible games.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Can you identify a system you encounter daily that is complex but lacks emergent properties? How does its predictability affect your interaction with it?
What simple rule-based systems in your life might have emergent outcomes that you haven’t noticed?
How might the distinction between emergence and complexity influence the design of processes or organizations?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Great Mental Models Volume 3 Systems and Mathematics