When something emerges it comes into existence where it can be observed. It results from the combined impact of many unpredictable interactions.
But they are never stable, always moving and connecting in ways that are not always clear or logical. You only see part of system you are part of, until you see a wider set of relationships.
Processes in the brain that connect many different memories of events and feelings that produce a thought. The actions of players in the stock market take actions that are not coordinated, yet you reason from limited data and choices to create a coherent story from which to make a decision.
The connections emerge in different ways to produce behaviours that adapt to information coming in and out of the environment that will have a positive or negative impact. For example, the seeds of a flower hold its potential and purpose. But to grow and emerge as a plant requires the local conditions to supply nutritious soil and sufficient water. It grows from one source and emerges as many flowers.
Conversely, to understand the emergent process, the patterns of interaction, the properties and the relationships that support them, means the gardener can intervene in the growth system and the result an still be unpredictable.
The seed may be a system, but relies on the intactions in its environment for the emergent process to start. The flower is where the result of emergence can be seen as one whole system.
The skill of a leader “lies in the earliest possible detection of the slightest tendencies that may develop and nurturing them. By spotting their emergent potential almost before they have begun, and before they have had time to appear and manifest their effects.”
Dao de Jing 4th century BC in the ‘Tao of Leadership’
What emerges depends on circumstances and novelty, where the response is going to be unpredictable. Patterns of interaction are always being tested, responded to, acted upon or discarded to produce a worldview that can deliver the desired outcome. This is how we learn and insights are generated.
One example is Otto Scharmer’s “Theory U”. It enables people to work together synergistically to generate solutions by listening, observing and stimulating an inner knowing or sensing possible actions. They emerge from thoughts that generate feelings and back into new thoughts. A possibility becomes from an idea from a process of sensing, noticing, paying attention and articulating new thoughts and actions. See the diagram below.
Complexity Science, calls it a “complex evolving organism” which has the ability to adapt to a network of agents impacting from a bigger system that they rely on for their survival. Just like a viable body needs a viable environment, they are “structurally coupled”. This allows the ‘agents’ or ‘cells’ in the system to learn and self-organise in response to changes in their environment.
This is the case with your own nervous system. It connects with other systems inside and the environment outside the body boundary through the medium of your senses. The boundaries define the identity of the system and the limits of its emergent qualities. See the relationships below. Deciding on which emergent quality is the most influential for “you” and “me” could be different, yet we are interdependent and can respond in different ways in different contexts. The result, can be the emergence of new qualities that “you” and “me” create together.
