We are surrounded by systems […]. We are, ourselves, one example of such a system.
Everywhere inside our boundary, the uncertainty principle rules the chemical reactions that keep us alive. Our cells communicate with each other by means of mechanisms that are not guaranteed to succeed. When our brains are built, chaos reigns at the lowest level where neurons connect to each other for the first time. And there you are, reading this book. What are the principles that make this possible?
Assume there is a master plan with detailed step-by-step instructions for all your cells to interact with each other such that you can read this sentence. Due to the enormous amount of possible scenarios, it would be impossible for it to account for every single thing that could go wrong. The whole universe would not be large enough neither rich enough to store all the contingency plans.
> “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein
Therefore, master plans written in terms of detailed instructions are not only impractical — they are infeasible. In general, life does not work by means of commandments given to each piece of the system. Rather, things happen due to the idiosyncrasies of the chaotic interactions between the parts.
As an example, let’s consider how solar systems form. At first there is an amorphous cloud of gas and dust. This may seem a quite unattractive state of affairs. But give the right nudge to the system, and it will cross a point of no return. From that moment on, the cloud will not be able to help itself. Regardless of what actually happens between all the particles of the cloud, at least one star will form out of it.
What makes the star out of the cloud are the characteristics of the relationship that exists between each of the particles in the system, a suitable initial condition, and enough time to let the cloud converge towards the implicit consequences.
If you let the system get to the initial condition, there will be no possible outcome other than at least one star.
Stars are *emergent properties* of clouds of gas and dust, and so are we.
> Systems of interacting parts tend to converge towards a steady state. Emergent properties are the characteristics of the steady states.
In exactly the same way, storms and wind bands are emergent properties of the atmospheres of rotating planets in orbit around a star. We can readily see that in our own solar system. Storms and wind bands occur regardless of the planet’s composition, the gases involved, the planet size, the orbit’s inclination, the distance to the star, the rotation speed, whether the planet has seas or not, etc. They are present even in planets’ satellites as well.
These atmospheric phenomena are self-organizing emergent properties of the system as a whole. They really cannot help themselves. There is no alternative for these atmospheres other than to have storms and wind bands.
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Section 1.3.1 of A Mentoring Course on Smalltalk, Large Systems