---
date: '2024-02-07'
description: how can complex properties emerge from simple rules.
id: emergent behaviour
modified: 2026-06-05 15:08:06 GMT-04:00
tags:
  - seed
  - r/psychology
title: emergent behaviour
created: '2024-02-07'
published: '2024-02-07'
pageLayout: default
slug: thoughts/emergent-behaviour
permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/thoughts/emergent-behaviour.md
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full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt
---
> When a complex entity exhibits properties, or behaviours that its parts do not have on their own.

We observe this from:

- [[thoughts/LLMs]], speculations at most \[@wei2022emergentabilitieslargelanguage\]
- Ants colonies
- mold simulations

In context of single agent within multi-agent systems, is it due to the rules itself ([[thoughts/reductionism|reductionist]]) or additional factors are involved here?

## emergentism

> Once a certain level of complexity is reached, there is a kind of qualitative leap where completely new sorts of physical laws can “emerge”—ones that are premised on, but cannot be reduced to, what came before

- In this way, the laws of chemistry can be said to be emergent from physics: the laws of chemistry presuppose the laws of physics, but can’t simply be reduced to them.
- In the same way, the laws of biology emerge from chemistry: one obviously needs to understand the chemical components of a fish to understand how it swims, but chemical components will never provide a full explanation.
- In the same way, the human mind can be said to be emergent from the cells that make it up.