Emergence
The connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software
Steven Johnson

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Author(s)

Steven Johnson

Publication

London : Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 2001

Scope

288 Pages, illustrated, 22 cm.

ISBN

0713994002

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In a paradigmatic example here, ants, without leaders or explicit laws, organize themselves into highly complex colonies that adapt to the environment as a single entity, altering size and behavior to suit conditions exhibiting a collective bottom-up intelligence, or what has come to be called 'emergence'. In the first two parts of the book, Johnson ranges over historical examples of such smart interconnectivity, from the silk trade in medieval Florence to the birth of the software industry and to computer programs that produce their own software offspring. In the third section Johnson weighs the impact of websites like Napster, eBay and Slashdot, predicting the creation of a brave, new media world in which self-organizing clusters of shared interests structure the entertainment industry.

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Keywords

sociology , city , future scenario's , internet , new media

Location

Cabinet 11 - 3: Digitale en mobiele media in de stad

Remarks

Incl. notes, Bibliography and Index.