Simulating Emergence and Downward Causation in Small Groups

Abstract

Emergence has been a central issue not only in computational models of social systems, but also throughout 20th century sociological theory. In this paper, I first define the key concepts of emergence, downward causation, and bi-directional causation, and I identify these processes in an example of improvised dialog. I then draw on emergentist trends in sociological theory to propose a computational model of collaborative emergence among small groups of improvising agents.