Reading Response
When the first time I read emergency I was kind of surprised. Because we just leant the flocking algorithm in other class last weak. This algorithm originally comes from the study of emergent behavior. Within this flocking algorithm there are some flocking rules that I found are similar to the rules in this article. The separation is a rule that steers an agent away from those in its neighborhood region, alignment is a rule to keep a agent’s heading aligned with its neighbors and cohesion acts to keep a group of agents together. All of these rules I think is definitely from the rule that pay attention to your neighbors. Also at the beginning of the code, we will set up the locations of these agents randomly. This one obeys the rules encourage random encounters. When we define the function of the agent we just give it a constructer function that is used for blueprint without real values. That is to say all of those functions can be applied into individuals of the flocking, so what we expect to see is not certain agent but the flocking just as the rule ignorance is useful. As the result we can make a flocking program that mimic the movements of fishes. Thanks to this article I find I can clearly understand the flocking algorithm.
When I come to understand what is emergency and what is a flocking I find it appears in a lot realms. For example, in nature, a flock of birds keep a precise distance away from and stay aligned with their nearest neighbors, and avoid predators. Our human consciousness can be a great example when it comes to biology realm. “Billions of neurons just perform a very simple function : relying electrical message across synapses to their neighbors.” Even, I think at economics realm, the economical system can self-regulate because it also attributes to such emergency theory.
One thing that I am interested in in this article is the example of cells. I used to share the opposite idea that the reason why human is human is that our cells are all get the instructions by the same playbook, DNA. Which I think it lacks randomness. Then I found even they have the same playbook, they still have emergency, that's why we are different. Another thing that resonate with me is that more is different. That just reminds me of one philosophical thought that qualitative change will finally come out of quantitative change. I think that is the reason why we should focus on the entirety rather than individuals. Because the change of each is so micro that people may ignore. And such ignore is a good thing as it mentioned in this article.
The author also compare colony to the city. In a way these two things share some similarities. Such as the ability to self-organize and similar kinds of businesses are neighbors, say Chinatown in New York. However, the author talks about the differences between these two. The author talks about emergent intelligence in ant colonies that is impossible for human to perceive in city. The author also talks about sidewalk which arouse my interest in it. He regard it as a conduit to transfer information between city residents. As for me, I think when I am walking on the street I indeed receive a lot of information from my surroundings that maybe have potential influence to me. But nowadays, when people walking on the street, they are always watching cellphone which in a way block the way to receive information from the sidewalks. I am wondering if our technology will change such importance of sidewalks or more generally traditional conduit for the flow of information?
References: Peter Tyson,”Everyday Examples of Emergence,” NOVA scienceNOW, January 07 2007, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/emergence-examples.html