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EMERGENCE may be the fly in the ointment that results in totally unexpected interactions between informational computer codes an viruses, giving us the inability to predict, nor control outcomes. The dramatic increase in computer code complexity in the short time it has been on the planet shows no sign of abating. Complex autonomous agents are the engine of emergent phenomena. View in LinkedIn

OUR ABILITY TO PREDICT how any complex system reacts as it gains greater complexity is confounded in all systems by the phenomenon of emergence, or the development of unanticipated traits and phenomena. This is now well recognized in biological systems. Is it equally recognized in increasingly complex computing systems? View in LinkedIn

INTELLIGENT GROUPS. "Flocks of birds flying in lockstep formation and schools of fish swimming in coherent array abruptly turn together with no leader guiding the group. Ants form complex societies whose survival derives from specialized laborers, unguided by a central director." An intelligence that exceeds that of the simple unitary players. https://lnkd.in/duzJtba View in LinkedIn

SUBSYSTEM LINKS. "Some of the most engaging and perplexing natural phenomena are those in which highly-structured collective behavior emerges over time from the interaction of simple subsystems." https://lnkd.in/duzJtba View in LinkedIn

UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS. "A single-celled bacterium is alive, but if you separate the macromolecules that combined to create the bacterium, these units are not alive. Based on our knowledge of macromolecules, we would not have been able to predict that they could combine to form a living organism, nor could we have predicted all of the characteristics of the resulting bacterium." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn

EMERGENCE in the silicon world of code and malware evolution is a topic worth looking at. Even in the world of biology, or even in physics, with sophisticated analytical tools available, we still are unable to predict emergent behavior as scale changes. A snowflake is not a glacier. View in LinkedIn

CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE. "Are cosmic rays really causing Toyota's woes? With more than 3,000 complaints to U.S. regulators of random sudden acceleration problems in Toyota models, several researchers say single event upsets deserve a close look." http://web.archive.org/web/20100322200332/http://www.freep.com/article/20100316/BUSINESS0104/3160361/1318/Are-cosmic-rays-really-causing-Toyotas-woes View in LinkedIn

SINGLE EVENT UPSETS. "Electronics makers have known for decades about "single event upsets," computer errors from radiation created when cosmic rays strike the atmosphere." https://lnkd.in/dkrN6nP View in LinkedIn

NANO INCREASES COSMIC MUTATION RISK. An Intel patent application: "Cosmic ray induced computer crashes have occurred and are expected to increase with frequency as devices (for example, transistors) decrease in size in chips. This problem is projected to become a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade." http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2580933/cosmic-rays-what-is-the-probability-they-will-affect-a-program View in LinkedIn