Editing Emergence (section)

==In humanity==
{{see also|Spontaneous order|Self-organization}}
Human beings are the basic elements of social systems, which perpetually interact and create, maintain, or untangle mutual social bonds. Social bonds in social systems are perpetually changing in the sense of the ongoing reconfiguration of their structure.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Social systems|last=Luhmann, N.|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=1995|location=Stanford}}</ref> An early argument (1904–05) for the emergence of social formations can be found in [[Max Weber]]'s most famous work, ''[[The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]]''.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = McKinnon | first1 = AM | year = 2010 | title = Elective affinities of the Protestant ethic: Weber and the chemistry of capitalism | url = http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3035/1/McKinnon_Elective_Affinities_final_non_format.pdf | journal = Sociological Theory | volume = 28 | issue = 1| pages = 108–26 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2009.01367.x | hdl = 2164/3035 | s2cid = 144579790 | hdl-access = free }}</ref> Recently, the emergence of a new social system is linked with the emergence of order from nonlinear relationships among multiple interacting units, where multiple interacting units are individual thoughts, consciousness, and actions.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Complexification: Explaining a paradoxical world through the science of surprise|last=Casti, J. L.|publisher=Harper Collins|year=1994|location=New York}}</ref> In the case of the global economic system, under [[capitalism]], growth, accumulation and innovation can be considered emergent processes where not only does technological processes sustain growth, but growth becomes the source of further innovations in a recursive, self-expanding spiral. In this sense, the exponential trend of the growth curve reveals the presence of a long-term positive [[feedback]] among growth, accumulation, and innovation; and the emergence of new structures and institutions connected to the multi-scale process of growth. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bonauiti |first1=Mauro |title=Degrowth: Tools for a Complex Analysis of the Multidimensional Crisis |journal=Capitalism Nature Socialism |date=2012 |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=30–50 |doi=10.1080/10455752.2011.648838 |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455752.2011.648838 |access-date=2024-04-10|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This is reflected in the work of [[Karl Polanyi]], who traces the process by which labor and nature are converted into commodities in the passage from an economic system based on agriculture to one based on industry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Polanyi |first1=Karl |title=The Great Transformation |date=1944}}</ref> This shift, along with the idea of the self-regulating market, set the stage not only for another economy but also for another society. The principle of emergence is also brought forth when thinking about alternatives to the current economic system based on growth facing social and [[planetary boundaries|ecological]] limits. Both [[degrowth]] and social [[ecological economics]] have argued in favor of a co-evolutionary perspective for theorizing about transformations that overcome the dependence of human wellbeing on [[economic growth]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spash |first1=Clive L |title=A tale of three paradigms_ Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics |journal=Ecological Economics |date=2020 |volume=169|doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106518 |bibcode=2020EcoEc.16906518S }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kallis |first1=Giorgos |title=Another Economy is Possible: Culture and Economy in a Time of Crisis |date=2017 |publisher=Wiley |pages=34–54}}</ref>

Economic trends and patterns which emerge are studied intensively by economists.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Arthur |first=W. Brian |title=Complexity and the economy |journal=Science |year=2015 |volume=284 |issue=5411 |pages=107–9 |location=Oxford |doi=10.1126/science.284.5411.107 |pmid=10103172 |oclc=876140942}}</ref> Within the field of group facilitation and organization development, there have been a number of new group processes that are designed to maximize emergence and self-organization, by offering a minimal set of effective initial conditions. Examples of these processes include [[SEED-SCALE]], [[appreciative inquiry]], Future Search, the world cafe or [[knowledge cafe]], [[Open Space Technology]], and others (Holman, 2010<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Holman|first=Peggy|date=December 2010 – January 2011|title=Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity|url=http://peggyholman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/211001pkSystems-Thinkerarticle.pdf|journal=Pegasus Communication: The Systems Thinker|volume=21|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130418075443/http://peggyholman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/211001pkSystems-Thinkerarticle.pdf|archive-date=2013-04-18}}</ref>). In international development, concepts of emergence have been used within a theory of social change termed [[SEED-SCALE]] to show how standard principles interact to bring forward socio-economic development fitted to cultural values, community economics, and natural environment (local solutions emerging from the larger socio-econo-biosphere). These principles can be implemented utilizing a sequence of standardized tasks that [[self-assemble]] in individually specific ways utilizing recursive evaluative criteria.<ref>Daniel C. Taylor, Carl E. Taylor, Jesse O. Taylor, ''Empowerment on an Unstable Planet: From Seeds of Human Energy to a Scale of Global Change'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)</ref>

Looking at emergence in the context of social and [[Systems theory|systems]] change, invites us to reframe our thinking on parts and wholes and their interrelation. Unlike machines, [[living systems]] at all levels of recursion - be it a sentient body, a tree, a family, an organisation, the education system, the economy, the health system, the political system etc - are continuously creating themselves. They are continually growing and changing along with their surrounding elements, and therefore are more than the sum of their parts. As Peter Senge and co-authors put forward in the book ''Presence: Exploring profound change in People, Organizations and Society'', "as long as our thinking is governed by habit - notably industrial, "machine age" concepts such as control, predictability, standardization, and "faster is better" - we will continue to recreate institutions as they have been, despite their disharmony with the larger world, and the need for all living systems to evolve."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Presence: exploring profound change in people, organizations, and society |date=2012 |publisher=Brealey |isbn=978-1-85788-355-8 |editor-last=Senge |editor-first=Peter M. |edition=Repr |location=London}}</ref> While change is predictably constant, it is unpredictable in direction and often occurs at second and nth orders of systemic relationality.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Bateson |first=Nora |date=September 2022 |title=An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.2896 |journal=Systems Research and Behavioral Science |language=en |volume=39 |issue=5 |pages=990–1004 |doi=10.1002/sres.2896 |issn=1092-7026|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Understanding emergence and what creates the conditions for different forms of emergence to occur, either insidious or nourishing vitality, is essential in the search for deep transformations.

The works of Nora Bateson and her colleagues at the International Bateson Institute delve into this. Since 2012, they have been researching questions such as ''what makes a living system ready to change? Can unforeseen ready-ness for change be nourished?'' Here being ready is not thought of as being prepared, but rather as nourishing the [[Flexibility (personality)|flexibility]] we do not yet know will be needed. These inquiries challenge the common view that a theory of change is produced from an identified preferred goal or outcome. As explained in their paper ''An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change'':<ref name=":0" /> "While linear managing or controlling of the direction of change may appear desirable, tending to how the system becomes ready allows for pathways of possibility previously unimagined." This brings a new lens to the field of emergence in social and systems change as it looks to tending the pre-emergent process. Warm Data Labs are the fruit of their [[Praxis (process)|praxis]], they are spaces for transcontextual mutual learning in which aphanipoetic phenomena unfold.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bateson |first=Nora |date=2021 |title=Aphanipoiesis |url=https://journals.isss.org/index.php/jisss/article/view/3887 |journal=Journal of the International Society for the Systems Sciences |language=en |volume=65 |issue=1 |issn=1999-6918}}</ref> Having hosted hundreds of Warm Data processes with 1000s of participants, they have found that these spaces of shared poly-learning across contexts lead to a realm of potential change, a necessarily obscured zone of wild interaction of unseen, unsaid, unknown flexibility.<ref name=":0" /> It is such flexibility that nourishes the ready-ing living systems require to respond to complex situations in new ways and change. In other words, this readying process preludes what will emerge. When exploring questions of social change, it is important to ask ourselves, what is submerging in the current social imaginary and perhaps, rather than focus all our resources and energy on driving direct order responses, to nourish flexibility with ourselves, and the systems we are a part of.

Another approach that engages with the concept of emergence for social change is Theory U, where "deep emergence" is the result of self-transcending knowledge after a successful journey along the U through layers of awareness.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scharmer |first=Claus Otto |title=Theory U: leading from the future as it emerges: the social technology of presencing |date=2016 |publisher=Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., a BK Business Book |isbn=978-1-62656-798-6 |edition=Second |location=San Francisco, California}}</ref> This practice nourishes transformation at the inner-being level, which enables new ways of being, seeing and relating to emerge. The concept of emergence has also been employed in the field of [[facilitator|facilitation]]. In ''Emergent Strategy'', [[Adrienne Maree Brown|adrienne maree brown]] defines emergent strategies as "ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Adrienne M. |title=Emergent Strategy |date=2017|page=20|publisher=AK Press |isbn=978-1-84935-260-4 |location=Chico, CA}}</ref>

In [[linguistics]], the concept of emergence has been applied in the domain of [[stylometry]] to explain the interrelation between the syntactical structures of the text and the author style (Slautina, Marusenko, 2014).<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Slautina | first1 = Maria | last2 = Marusenko | first2 = Mikhail | year = 2014 | title = L'émergence du style. Les méthodes stylométriques pour la recherche de paternité des textes médiévaux | url = https://www.academia.edu/9466688 | journal = Les Cahiers du Numérique | volume = 10 | issue = 4| pages = 179–215 | doi = 10.3166/lcn.10.4.179-215 }}</ref> It has also been argued that the structure and regularity of [[language]] [[grammar]], or at least [[language change]], is an emergent phenomenon.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopper |first1=Paul J. |title=The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure |date=1998 |pages=155–175 |chapter=Emergent grammar}}</ref> While each speaker merely tries to reach their own communicative goals, they use language in a particular way. If enough speakers behave in that way, language is changed.{{sfn|Keller|1994}} In a wider sense, the norms of a language, i.e. the linguistic conventions of its speech society, can be seen as a system emerging from long-time participation in communicative problem-solving in various social circumstances.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Määttä |first1=Urho |title=Kielitieteen emergenttinen metateoria |journal=Virittäjä |date=4 January 2000 |volume=104 |issue=4 |pages=498 |url=https://journal.fi/virittaja/article/view/40040 |access-date=24 March 2022 |language=fi |issn=2242-8828}}</ref>