Rating: 
Summary: How not to learn about emergence
Review: Steven Johnson's "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" (Scribner, New York, 2001),is a very bad book, shallow, careless, and disappointing. I was lured by its nominal subject, which interests me greatly, and now I'm sorry I bought it. Mr. Johnson is a young- very young- video gamer who has managed to parlay a superficial aquaintance with the vocabulary of modern science into a series of trendy popular books, incomprehensibly praised by such authorities as Steven Pinker and Esther Dyson.
The book opens with a fraudulent pictorial simile, juxtaposing a side view of the human brain and a map of Hamburg ca. 1850. Indeed they do resemble each other, and the reader is supposed to infer (with no help from Johnson) that the resemblance arises from the operation of similar governing principles. Quite apart from the validity of this conclusion, it apparently does not trouble Johnson that the brain is three-dimensional and the city map is essentially two-dimensional, or that the comparison would fail if a frontal view of the brain had been chosen, or if Paris or El Paso or Denver had been chosen instead of Hamburg.
It gets worse. At the most fundamental level, after reading the book I find it impossible to say what the author means by "emergence", his nominal title. When he discusses ant colonies it appears to mean swarm intelligence; when he discusses video games it appears to mean interactive software; at still other places it appears to mean whatever recent developments in the realm of computers or biophysics or city planning that he approves of.
Moreover, he appears to be totally ignorant of all science and mathematics that preceded his own adolescence. Although he has a great deal to say about self-organizing systems, you will search the index in vain for the names of John Conway, Oskar Morgenstern, John von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam, Stephen Wolfram, or most of the other pioneers of the field. When he does recognize a figure from antiquity (i.e., pre-1970), it is with worshipful adulation. He italicizes the name of Marvin Minsky as if he were a demigod, and finds a book by Norbert Wiener "curiously brilliant". What exactly is the curiosity?- that a brilliant mathematician should write a brilliant book? Likewise, you will find no entry in the index under "Boolean networks" or "cellular automata" or "crystallization" or "ferromagnetism." Under "entropy" you will find only the ludicrous assertion that in nonequilibrium thermodynamics "the laws of entropy are temporarily overcome." In short, Mr. Johnson gives new meaning to the phrase "born yesterday," a degree of ignorance and juvenile solipsism that borders on arrogance.
I note that other reader-reviewers assert that the book will provide lay persons with an introduction to a new science. No, it won't. The only thing it will provide is an introduction to bad science.
Rating:
Summary: Godel, Escher, Bach for dummies
Review: Not really feeling this one. The author argues the case for "complexity theory"; the ability for simple units to coalesce into a larger, synergistic whole. Ants in colonies, citizens in cities, and neurons in brains are used as examples. But then topics dont really tie toghther that well, and the book is scattered and all over the place. No one subject is ever examined in detail. Frankly, I'd rather read a collection of essays on (separately) ants, brains, cities, and software than this disorganized jumble.On a slight tangent, why is it that people always need to create metaphors when talking about cognition and the human brain? When we are talking about the circulatory system no one makes an analogy to ant colonies... they just talk about the circulatory system. The reason is that (for now) no one knows how the brain works and so fanciful analogies cannot yet be scientifically disproven. I've noticed this is a bad tendency for science writers everywhere. Cut it out, you blockheads!
Rating: 
Summary: Good light reading
Review: For those expecting some rigorous treatment of the subject and a comprehensive overview, this is not the book. But for those wishing to spend a few lazy hours reading up an interdisciplinary delight, this is a good pick. While the treatment of the subject is superficial and introductory, the language and style of writing is admittedly engrossing! The author SJ, manages to inflect his prose with biting sarcasm or simply plain humor at the just the right places, to keep one turning one page onto another. Another very good element in this book is the numerous references and potential reading lists that one can create. In covering as vast and 'disconnected' a realm of subjects as touted in its cover, SJ traverses a wide expanse of literary sources and is liberal in quoting them... which allows readers with an interest in specific minutiae to explore their subject that bit deeper. To that extent, this book serves as a wonderfully easy to read primer on the subject of emergence; it can probably be likened to Universality by Mark Ward.... without going into the rigorous depths of Chaos (Gleick), and yet serving up something where one is left with numerous trails of thought, each with its own army of books to explore and pursue.
Rating:
Summary: Mainstream Media Meets Complex Adaptive Systems
Review: The publishing industry continues to fuel the growth of popular science with titles like Emergence. I'm all for the growth of science titles, but the price comes at the increase in the number of watered-down, easy-to-digest material you'll find in bookstores. With the explosion in books written on the topic of complex adaptive systems, I found it difficult to choose a single book in the category. With little restraint, I dove in. Emergence is a light, easy read devoted to describing systems that demonstrate adaptive behavior. The author sends significant time on contemporary systems such as the news media, the worldwide web, and large urban areas. On more than one occasion, the author appears to be reaching to make a conclusion. It's difficult to say whether he hadn't done the research or wanted the reader to draw his/her own conclusion. Nonetheless, Steven Johnson paints an abstract picture of systems that demonstrate a larger, collective set of smarts. Like most abstract art, some people will be inspired and others won't. I found the writing and subject matter interesting enough to keep my curiosity fueled to pick up another book on complex systems. If you approach Emergence with a mind-set of getting more art than science, you're less likely to be let down.
Rating:
Summary: Lightweight introduction to the ideas of emergence
Review: In this book, Johnson does a very good job of conveying the ideas of emergence in a simple, understandable way. For people that are just looking to get an idea of what the field is about, this book will provide the answers in an accessible manner. The book beings with a compelling look at the way ant colonies function and uses this as a foundation for the ideas of emergence. Along the way he looks at several examples of emergence, including cities and software. He also touches on (or alludes to) current research areas such as genetic algorithms and pattern recognitition. As someone who studied computer science I felt the book was a bit too light and missed some great opportunities to dig, at least a bit, into greater detail. However, I think many people will find this an approachable, enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Making scientific mountains out of ant hills.
Review: "Call it swarm logic" (p. 74). In his fascinating examination of slime molds, ant colonies, cells, cities, and computer software, Steven Johnson (MIND WIDE OPEN) introduces his reader to the cutting-edge theory of emergence in his 2001 book. He simplifies this complex field of research initiated in the mideighties (p. 85) through example and analogy. Examining ants, for example, Johnson demontrates how these unintelligent insects, "which dominate the planet in a way that makes human populations look like an evolutionary afterthought" (p. 73), organize into complex colonies that adapt in size and behavior to their environment as a single entity, thereby exhibiting a spontaneous and collective intelligence. Johnson then reveals that what connects ant colonies with slime mold, computer games, other living ecologies, the guild system of twelfth-century Florence, cell divisions, and software "is a recurring pattern and shape: a network of self-organization, of disparate agents that unwittingly create a higher-level order" (p. 21). "Just like the clock maker metaphors of the Enlightenment, or the dialectical logic of the nineteenth century," Johnson writes, "the emergent worldview belongs to this moment in time" (p. 56). Although this book may lack depth and detail at times, it is nevertheless an excellent starting point for readers (like me) interested in exploring this revolutionary scientific theory. G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: The Darwin myth in search of a theory
Review: Comparable to Kevin Kelly's Out of Control, although without that book's honesty in pointing out the limits of Darwin's theory before beginning, this work plies the Great Postdarwinian Hope that complexity theory will come to the rescue of the biology scandal, viz. Darwin's theory doesn't do it. If it did, what would be the point of these books? Much of the material is not without interest, but it is all a fishing expedition, and the minnows won't bite. The problem here is that the higher systems we see in history and culture simply won't yield to reductionist derivatives of current science.
The idea of emergence is a good one. Check out the historical data of the so-called Axial Age. We have emergence right under our noses in world history, all we have to do is study it. But the great taboo is that we can't do that, because we have to stay confused. I guess it is not time for a paradigm shift, and this type of theory junk is the bone du jour for chewing on til when.
Rating:
Summary: Godel, Escher, Bach for dummies
Review: Not really feeling this one. The author argues the case for "complexity theory"; the ability for simple units to coalesce into a larger, synergistic whole. Ants in colonies, citizens in cities, and neurons in brains are used as examples. But then topics dont really tie toghther that well, and the book is scattered and all over the place. No one subject is ever examined in detail. Frankly, I'd rather read a collection of essays on (separately) ants, brains, cities, and software than this disorganized jumble. On a slight tangent, why is it that people always need to create metaphors when talking about cognition and the human brain? When we are talking about the circulatory system no one makes an analogy to ant colonies... they just talk about the circulatory system. The reason is that (for now) no one knows how the brain works and so fanciful analogies cannot yet be scientifically disproven. I've noticed this is a bad tendency for science writers everywhere. Cut it out, you blockheads!
Rating:
Summary: Decent Read
Review: I was not particularly impressed by the book, but that is probably because I already knew the basics of emergent behavior. I felt that the book could have been written in about two-thirds the number of pages and still delivered its message. So, I would not recommed the book to those who have heard of emergence, but if you have never heard of it before, the book should be quite interesting and revealing. The concepts are put forward in a nice and simple way.
Rating:
Summary: Comparative Connections
Review: Stephen Johnson is out to find connections, and he undoubtedly has found some between ants, brains, cities and software. As a cultural critic Johnson relies heavily on outside sources for all of his 'down and dirty' research; Deborah Gordon's studies on ants; Mitch Resnick's slime mold program, Will Wright's Sim's game, and Rob Malda's Slashdot rating system; and Giaccomo Rizzolati's mirror neurons. Needless to say his Notes and Bibliography sections are broad and vast. I am still very curious about these mirror neurons that exist only in humans and chimpanzees. Johnson used Rizzolati's study of the frontal lobe to close a section on neurological connections between people. Unfortunately, that's all he used it for, a closing to an introduction that was already overstuffed with information about perception studies and autism. For each schizophrenic section there are at least a dozen coherent sections, so the comparisons that Johnson makes between disparate fields are persuasive and legible. The most well-read area of this book deals with cities and their patterns for behavioral learning. You don't have to read the acknowledgements to know that Johnson lives on the island of Manhattan, there are suggestions throughout the text of the invincible air a pedestrian city carries, and I imagine that some of his conclusions aggravate the tiresome rivalry bewteen New York and Los Angeles. Having said that, he pulls a strong thread through Krugman's "polycentric, plum-pudding pattern of the modern metropolis," Jacobs discussions on urban growth as it relates to densities, and Engels's first glimpse of Manchester as it launched modernity.
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