Emergence: From Chaos To Order (Helix Books) Hardcover – January 6, 1998

Professor John H. Holland's book-length essay on how new and unexpected things happen when complex systems interact with one another, is essential reading for anyone having an interest in complexity science. Much of what Prof, Holland writes about occurs at the lowest level of life forms, arising from interaction of the basic structures of life itself, most often found at the cellular level, but extending into complex systems that are self organizing, and readily adapt into specialized organs and other structures of living things, whether plant or animal. It's a fascinating topic that is not well understood. This book stands as a companion to the author's other book that I have reviewed, Hidden Order, both of which I read in tandem. I highly recommend each of them, preferably read together, that will give readers a much more comprehensive understanding of the subtleties that play themselves out, whether they are outcomes of biological or biochemical interaction, the growth and development of organisms and structures within living things, or the way in which plants and animals at every level of life interact with one another in response to each other and the environment in which they live and thrive.The important thing to remember is that these are all stochastic processes that deal with aggregates, interacting with other aggregates, at different levels of a nonlinear complex system, in which accurate predictions cannot be made. Nevertheless, Prof. Holland's excellent book is a monumental step forward (at least for me) and explaining the fundamentals of complexity science. I highly recommend it.

Book was good condition, as advertised.

I WANT TO SEE THE TABLE CONTENTS OF AMAZON BOOKS!!!

Having done some work with genetic algorithms, I was very excited to read a book by John Holland. I was hoping to learn more about how to create models of complex systems and how new behavior can be exhibited by computer programs that were not inherent in the programmer's intent or design.I certainly came away with knowledge of how to create models because that seemed to be the main point that Professor Holland made throughout the book. Don't get me wrong. Modeling is critically important to understanding the world we live in and the phenomena we observe in the world. I just had no idea from the title or the blurbs that modeling would be such a central theme. In a way it is reassuring since modeling is something that I am very comfortable with, and to me, relatively straight forward.The book covers such novel concepts as cell assemblies, anticipation, signaling, and indefinite memory in relatively easy to understand language. There is a fair amount of dense mathematical notation that adds a bit of depth if you are comfortable with the subject matter, but can be skipped by the casual reader. I also like the point Professor Holland made about macrolaws and microlaws - that once basic structures and patterns are in place (microlaws), emergent, higher level structures and patterns emerge (macrolaws) that can be explained without reverting back to a knowledge of the microlaws. This provides a road map to understanding more about emergent behavior as we better develop and understand the microlaws describing emergent behavior.I do think that some of the material was repetitive. Although many reviewers liked the last chapter or two, the end of the book seemed to drag on for me. It was a combination of recap (which is fine), and a philosophical discourse on innovation and creativity. The material was fine, but it seemed just tacked on at the end, and was less interesting to me than the rest of the book.I have not yet read "Hidden Order", so I cannot compare the two books. Overall, I am very glad I read the book. I learned many new concepts regarding emergent behavior, and reinforced my prior knowledge about things like neural nets, genetic algorithms, and game trees.

Take various concepts from statistical physics, dynamical systems, cellular automata, game theory, machine learning, etc . Mix this in one book, rename some of them, add several metaphors and... Nothing new or useful emerges. No wheel was invented. No real problem was solved. Unless the problem was to make some money from writing a book.

The finest book on CAS I have read!

The book has a good description of Arthur Samuel's checkers playing program, but beyond that I did not get much out of it. When constrained generating procedures were introduced, I was hoping to see how to implement the checkers program. Holland gives a lengthy discussion of a complex network of agents for the squares on the checkerboard, giving an elaborate description of how they communicate to determine the possible next move. Then he says that at the next level, the computer uses Samuel's algorithm for evaluating possible next moves. There seems to be a serious disconnect here. Use of constrained generating procedures in this case does not provide any advantage over an ordinary computer program. The impression I get is that, when it comes to specifics, there is not yet a whole lot to say about emergence.There are some annoying errors in the book. It says, correctly, that there are 16 ways of covering a 2 by 2 grid with black discs. There is an illustration of each one. Sixteen is easily calculated as 2^4. Then he says there are 73 ways of covering the board with black and white discs. Where did 73 come from? Three possibilities (black, white or blank) for each square gives 3^4=81. He later says that vision evolved at least twice - among mammals and cephalopods. You do not need to be a biologist to see that a lot of animals with eyes were left out.If you can get a copy of the book from your local library, read the chapter on checkers and maybe the chapter on constrained generating procedures. Ignore the rest.

Good, but pretty simple. An interesting, well-paced introductory level text.

la qualità della stampa è pessima e davvero imbarazzante. I riquadri con sfondo grigio sono illeggibili e i caratteri delle figure sono fusi assieme. Semplicemente inutilizzabile, sono stupito di una tale assenza di controllo qualità da parte di Amazon. Senza parole

arrived well

great condition! The book is well preserved and the content is awesome. I guess this will become one of my favourite books!

The quality of the print is execrable. Tiny broken letters. Panels in dark grey with light grey text printed over them. The whole thing looks like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy - which has then been reduced.

I was looking for science of Emergence as the subject matter. The book deals with abstract aspects making it complicated, stray and irrelevant