Emergence (Steven Johnson)
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Emergence (Steven Johnson)
| Full title | Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software |
|---|---|
| Author | Steven Johnson |
| Published | 2001 |
| Pages | 288 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Steven Johnson’s 2001 book on how order arrives bottom-up — in ant colonies, neighbourhoods and software — without anyone directing it. The earlier book that sets up Where Good Ideas Come From, and the theory behind the “don’t design the lab, design the conditions” answer. |
Emergence (Steven Johnson)
Where I heard about it
- A reply to Sarah Guo — named in answer to her question on X, March 2025: “is there a book / essay about environments that best support scientific discovery? Not about specifically bell labs, cavendish, xerox parc, los alamos - but why these places were so productive?” The whole recovered reply list is on Is There a Book… (tweet).
Connections
- Steven Johnson — author.
- Where Good Ideas Come From (Steven Johnson) — the sequel argument, also saved in this thread.
- Emergence — the concept page; this card is the book, disambiguated.
- City Building — the portfolio idea.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.