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Title: Emergence: From Chaos To Order (Helix Books)
ISBN: 0738201421
Author:
John H. Holland
Publicate Date: 1999-04-22
Publish: 1999-04-22
List Price: $18.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $10.39
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $5.63
Amazon Merchant Price: $12.24
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Another great book by Holland
Expands on Holland's previous book Hidden Order. It presents an interesting method for understanding complexity and emergence. Highly recommended for those attempting to understand complex adaptive systems.
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2: First steps towards a future theory of emergence
I just read Emergence in preperation for my oral qualifying exams for a Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science. I disagree with many of the negative reviewers -- this book is well-worth the read. I share some frustration over this book due to the way it seems to scratch the surface. The book's strength seems to be in asking the right questions and pointing the way towards some future science of emergent behavior.
The book is too short for my taste -- in many of the later chapters Holland makes thought-provoking, deep remarks, without the follow-up and commentary that they leave me hoping for. But again, his main purpose seems to be in making people think about the issues. And he provides some formalisms that might be part of some future theory -- his constrained generating procedures (CGPs) and the variable "CGP-v" recall constructs such as the Turing machine for studying computability.
The strengths of the book lie in:
1) Discussion of the nature of modeling in science, and computer modeling in particular. This is discussed with clarity and pragmatism.
2) The beginnings of a framework in which to study emergence in multi-agent systems.
3) Discussion of the importance of metaphor/analogy in the creative scientific process. I didn't expect this to appear in the book but it was very welcome, and especially appropriate due to the role played by Mitchell's and Hofstadter's "Copycat" model (of analog-making itself) as it motivates the expansion of CGPs to CGP-v's as the book progresses.
Overall, I recommend this book highly to readers interested in the beginnings of this exciting new science, that really is in its infancy. I gave it 4 stars just because I felt like Holland had a lot more to say in the later chapters and left too much "as an exercise for the reader." I hope he does follow-on work that clarifies his vision for a future science of emergence!
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3: an undispensable completion of "hidden order"
After 7 years from its publication it still gives a valid and fundamental approach to the concepts of emergence and its meaning
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4: Toss Up
Parts of this book were interesting, but overall it was much ado about not much, and what was done was often overdone (I agree with another reviewer on this point). I see that Amazon has coupled this book with Hidden Order. I can't see why. It would be like buying the same book twice. Anyway, so much of this has been warmed over so many times now that it's frankly a bit dry. I'd like to see a book that really breaks new ground in complexity without overusing buzz words or talking down to me, holding my hand through simple things. Here, the topic is more attractive than the content I'm afraid. Anyone really interested in complexity and emergence will need to go into technical details well beyond this book. Others, like me, will likely find the details that are here to be a bit tedious.
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5: Science Fiction
The review says "Think of the food replicators in the imaginary future of Star Trek--with some basic chemical building blocks and simple rules, those machines can produce everything from Klingon delicacies to Earl Grey tea. If scientists can understand and apply the knowledge they gather from studying emergent systems, we may soon witness the development of artificial intelligence, nanotech, biological machines, and other creations heretofore confined to science fiction." -- What?? Like we are about to make food replicators because of the "deep understanding" that we now have of emergent systems??I agree with the other reviewer who says the book is characteristically weak. The cover is prettier than Hidden Order. But so what. There have to be better books on complexity than this for the average popular science reader.
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