16 Technical Artifacts, Engineering Practice, and Emergence

16.1 Introduction: Emergence as a Practical Problem

Mainly driven by an intellectual challenge, philosophers, biologists, and more recently
also physicists have devoted a lot of attention to the analysis of what they call “emergent
properties” and “emergent behavior or capacities.”^1 Their aim is to understand how the
overall properties of (complex) systems, composed of various parts, are related to the
properties of their parts and their relations. Emergence is said to occur when certain prop-
erties appear in a system that are novel or unexpected and go beyond the properties of the
parts of that system. Paradigmatic examples of emergent features studied in these fi elds
are consciousness and the brain, life in biological organisms, and chaotic behavior of
complex dynamical physical systems. Especially within the biological sciences, discus-
sions about emergent behavior have a long history. Can features of living organisms such
as homeostasis, plasticity, or adaptation be reduced without residue to the properties,
behavior, and relations of their underlying parts or not, and if not, in what sense can these
features be claimed to be emergent, that is, “more than the sum of the parts” (see, e.g.,
Feltz, Crommelinck, and Goujon 2006; Boogerd et al. 2005)? The issues about emergence
in these various fi elds are confounded by profound ambiguities related to the notions of
“reduction” and “emergence.” With regard to the mind-body problem, various interpreta-
tions of the notions of reduction and emergence have resulted in a proliferation of positions
in recent decades. In a review article, Van Gulick (2001) distinguishes at least ten varieties
for each of the notions of reduction and of emergence, giving rise to a host of possible
combinations to interpret the mind-body problem.
In recent times, the notion of “emergence” has also become a topic of debate in engi-
neering circles (Buchli and Santini 2005; Deguet, Demazeau, and Magnin 2006; Johnson
n.d.). The science of complex systems as well as engineering itself are developing fi elds
in which emergent properties are seen as a defi ning feature of complexity.^2 Complex
systems may exhibit processes of self-organization that are of particular interest for engi-
neering when these processes lead to emergent systemic properties such as adaptivity,
robustness, and self-repair. What is taken to be a less desirable feature of these emergent

Peter Kroes