What’s Emergent in Emergent Computing?

Emergent Computing (EC) has become a widespread concept in computer science, particularly in AI und A-Life. In this paper, the relation of EC to the philosophy of emergentism, as developed by Alexander, Broad, Morgan and used in modern theories of self-organisation, is discussed using examples from the theory of cellular automata. Additionally, fundamental issues of emergentism and (in-)determinism in relation to EC are brought up for discussion. 1 Motivation and Goals The goal of this paper is to describe ongoing work to examine the notion of “emergent computing” in relation to the concept of emergence as known from emergentist philosophy, and to show some issues that came up in the course of that work. The relevance is seen in the fact that “mind” and “consciousness” are often considered emergent properties of the physical world (thereby touching on central issues of AI and AL), and that emergence can also be seen as one of the cornerstones in the understanding of “information” [Hofkirchner 2001]. Questions to be examined include: what does the concept “emergent computing” mean considering philosophical ideas of emergence; and is it a welldefined, commonly agreed on concept? More fundamentally, in which ways can “emergence” occur in computing, if at all? 2 The Concept of Emergence in