16” x 20”, ink and collage on paper. Available directly from Tré Fantastico, Victoria, BC. Please add taxes.

Emergent Phenomena: “Emergence” describes the ability of individual components of a large system to work together to give rise to dramatic and diverse behaviour. Biological systems commonly exhibit emergent behaviour. The complex behaviour of flocks of birds, colonies of ants, swarms of bees and schools of fish emerges from the interactions of the constituent parts of the respective systems.

Consider an ant colony. In the absence of centralised decision-making, ant colonies exhibit complex, problem-solving behaviour. This behaviour emerges from the reaction of individual ants to simple chemical stimuli – from larvae, other ants, intruders, food and waste. In turn, each ant produces chemical signals, providing a stimulus that other ants respond to. From simple interactions leading to self-organisation, ant colonies have demonstrated the ability to collectively solve geometric problems, such as optimising their foraging route to and from food resources.

This only happens when the ants are together - merged. It does not occur on an individual level. Recent work by Enkeleida Lushi and colleagues from Brown University showed how bacteria in a drop of water spontaneously form a bi-directional vortex, with the bacteria near the centre of the droplet circulating in the opposite direction to those near the edge. Since the bacteria do not consciously decide to create the bi-directional vortex, such behaviour is said to be “emergent”.

Unlike music from an orchestra led by the conductor, emergent behaviour arises spontaneously due to (often simple) interactions of the constituent parts with each other and the surrounding environment. Here, there is no “leader” deciding on the behaviour of the system.

I’m intrigued by what this might tell us about the power of working together to solve complex problems.