7.2 Emergent Phenomena
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Useful Links
Learning Goals
After this lesson, students should
- Understand that simple things governed by simple rules can, in aggregate, result in surprisingly complex behaviours, which can be studied in and of themselves.
- Be aware of when complex behaviours in some physical and sociological systems may be the consequence of relatively simple rules on the constituents, and therefore not fully explicable by either reductionism or deliberate agents.
- Be aware of humans' tendency to overperceive agency in external phenomena in general (e.g. anthropomorphizing), making us prone to mistaking emergent phenomena as intentional.
Definitions
- Term
- Explanation.
Examples
- Social media
- When people are highly connected to each other in social networks with simple rules of interaction (likes, friending, retweeting, etc.), unintended emergent phenomena, such as widespread misinformation, are likely to arise.
- Water
- Water is wet, but water molecules are not. The property of "wetness" must emerge from the relatively simple rules that govern the interactions between water molecules.
- Conway's Game of Life
- A classic demonstration of cellular automata, in which simple local rules result in complex patterns arising on a larger scale.
- Shelling Model of Segregation
- An model wherein large scale segregation is able to emerge even when individual people have no explicit desire to segregate. The agents are fine being in the minority as long as at least some fraction people that live around them are of the same group.
- Consciousness as a result of local interactions between neurons
Common Misconceptions
- YouTube is promoting late night talk show hosts over smaller individual creators. It must mean that the YouTube executives are deliberately stifling small content creators.
- While such a conspiracy is still possible, it is also likely that the rules that govern the recommendation algorithm result in this emergent phenomenon, when it was not the executives explicit intention.
Context
[Explanation of how the current topic into the larger context of the course by explaining how the previous topic(s) relate to the current topic and leaving cliffhangers for future topics where relevant throughout the lesson]
Before
- X.X Lesson Name
- Explanation.
- Itemized explanation.
After
- X.X Lesson Name
- Explanation.
- Itemized explanation.
Recommended Outline
Before Class
- [Any essential logistical things that need to be done for this class]
- Prepare a seating chart.
- Review PlayPosit and discussion questions and ask faculty, Gabriel, or Emlen any questions you have.
- (Optional) Prepare a presentation.
During Class
- (5 min) Come up with some fun way to assign the roles of spokesperson and notetaker (e.g. earliest birthday in the year, lives furthest from campus). Remind them of the responsibilities of these roles.
- ([#] min) [Description of some module from #Lesson Content]
After Class
- [Any essential logistical things that need to be done as followup for this class]
- Collect answers from notetakers for the forum / plenary.
Lesson Content
Shelling Neighbourhood Segregation Model
Students will play around with this simulated model of neighborhood segregation. Have them mess around with it in small groups and answer the following discussion questions as they do so. Then call the class back together for a larger discussion.
Discussion Questions
- What are the simple objects and simple rules in this simulation?
Overall System: Some grid of pixels representing a city. Simple Objects: Pixels that can be either red or blue corresponding to some binary feature of a person. Simple Rules: A pixel moves to the nearest unoccupied space if an insufficient fraction of its immediate neighbors are the same color as it. This corresponds to some preference that people have to be near those that are similar to them. - What is the phenomena that emerges?
- Try tweaking the model and see how the emergent behavior changes. What parameters have the biggest impact? Under what conditions does the emergent phenomena collapse/vanish?
- What features are missing from this model? Do those features matter with regards to the phenomena that emerges?
- How well do you think the agents in this simulation model real people picking their neighborhoods? Does this model tell us anything about how people behave and what sorts of interventions it might take to reduce neighborhood segregation?
Conspiracy Theories
From the example of the Shelling Model above, we have learned that a model of causation by emergence involves many actors following simple rules of interaction. When we observe a phenomenon we suspect to be emergent, we can build an emergent model by first hypothesising simple rules on individuals, and then simulating the outcome of the interactions of many such individuals.
Consider a widespread conspiracy theory. (For example, 36% of Americans polled in 2006 believed that it was somewhat or very likely that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 attacks or knowingly let them happen. source) We would like to model the popularisation of this belief among Americans as an emergent phenomenon.
In small groups, try to build such a model. (Think about the way the Shelling model works.)
- What is the overall system that you are trying to model?
- What are the simple objects (actors) that make up this system?
- What are the simple rules that each of these pieces follows (regarding the forming and sharing of beliefs)?