Alice Schwarze - Emerging Intelligence: from neurons to social dynamics - IPAM at UCLA

[@ChadKovac]

It's so embarrassing to see scientists use the term emerging or emergent When all it means is the scientist was surprised by the outcome and has yet to find an explanation. It's like saying it was magic until we saw it happen.

[@kronos3853]

I could be wrong, I am not a scientist. But I don't think that's what emergent means. My understanding is that emergence is when new levels of complexity arise from interactions at different scales. For example we know all the mechanics of waves in the ocean, we aren't looking for an explanation for how waves form. But waves are still emergent from water, a single molecule of water will never be able to form a wave or even take its part of a wave without other molecules. If we were to study only a single molecule of water we would not understand how waves work, and in the same way if we are to study only water as a liquid without breaking it into chemical structures and bonds we would be missing its interactions on a different scale.