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Emergence Versus Self-Organisation: Different Concepts but Promising When Combined

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Engineering Self-Organising Systems (ESOA 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3464))

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Abstract

A clear terminology is essential in every research discipline. In the context of ESOA, a lot of confusion exists about the meaning of the terms emergence and self-organisation. One of the sources of the confusion comes from the fact that a combination of both phenomena often occurs in dynamical systems. In this paper a historic overview of the use of each concept as well as a working definition, that is compatible with the historic and current meaning of the concepts, is given. Each definition is explained by supporting it with important characteristics found in the literature. We show that emergence and self-organisation each emphasise different properties of a system. Both phenomena can exist in isolation. The paper also outlines some examples of such systems and considers the combination of emergence and self-organisation as a promising approach in complex multi-agent systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Kuleuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Tom De Wolf & Tom Holvoet

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  1. Tom De Wolf
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  2. Tom Holvoet
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. NewVectors, 3520 Green Court, Suite 250, MI 48105, Ann Arbor, USA

    Sven A. Brueckner

  2. School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Birkbeck College London,  

    Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo

  3. Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, University of Thessaly, 37 Glavani, 28th October Str., Deligiorgi Building, 4th floor, room D3/4, 382 21, Volos, Greece

    Anthony Karageorgos

  4. Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Computer Science Dept., Harvard University, 235 Maxwell Dworkin, 33 Oxford Street, MA 02138, Cambridge, USA

    Radhika Nagpal

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De Wolf, T., Holvoet, T. (2005). Emergence Versus Self-Organisation: Different Concepts but Promising When Combined. In: Brueckner, S.A., Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Karageorgos, A., Nagpal, R. (eds) Engineering Self-Organising Systems. ESOA 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3464. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11494676_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11494676_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26180-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31901-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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