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Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
Steven Johnson
Scribner
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Patterns In Imagination
Written during the height of the late Tech Bubble, it often seems to have more faith, in a secular way of course, in the imagined promises of technology in general and software in particular. The similes are compelling, and the parallels are intriguing, but there's always some nagging question on what it all means. None of the short-term predictions have come to pass, and the long-term predictions are more in the way of philosophical musings of the author. And, the almost child-like respect for computer simulations is questionable, particularly when presented without any supporting arguments or explanations. Not a book on technology as such, or anything really concrete or otherwise directly useful. Some of the points bring to mind the clashes between the Copenhagen and Gottingen schools when quantum mechanics was being conjured up. A good read for speculative background on artificial intelligence.
Not enough emergence
I was prepared to like this book since it deals Emergence, a subject I'm interested in. Some parts of this book are relevant, such as stories about ants, slime molds, Starlogo, the Sims, the Gearhead toys, while other parts seem to be included to philosophize about how various aspects of life have some hints of Emergence (or is it evolution?), such as cities (on and on), computers, the world wide web, chimpanzees, and much more. I thought about a third of the book was interesting enough to read intently, and I used speed reading (or page skipping) to go through the rest of the book. In short, some interesting Emergence, but not enough. This is a fine book to get from the library or to buy used.
I love this book. It's now one of my favorites
I love the analogies that he uses and how he analyzes ant colonies. He makes a pretty good case to show how collective intelligence is what moves mountains, not any one person's particular intelligence.
Great Book
I read this about a year ago and purchased a copy for my girl friend. Very interesting and insightful perspective on life and organization.
Nice soft intro to concepts of self-organisation
For those with a technical interest in the matter, this is a nice soft intro to the topics with which concerned. It is written with a somewhat emotional style; probably not an ideal technical resource.
For the readers not akin to the concepts at all, the book successfully conveys a nice (and vitally important) way of interpreting natural phenomena (that of self-organisation, collective intelligence, etc.), but, through its somewhat emotional style, may create a sort of hype around the concept.
A pleasant and fast read, over-all; worth it.