The example of emergence that comes to my mind most readily is a simple observation that Douglas Hofstadter made in Godel, Escher, Bach -- a book which definitely does not use "emergent" as a synonym for "magical":
In a game of Go, once there are two separate open spaces -- "eyes" -- in the middle of a connected group of stones, that group becomes invincible (because the opponent can't fill both holes with one move). There's no official rule in Go that says "Patterns with two eyes can't be captured", the rule just sa... (read more)
The example of emergence that comes to my mind most readily is a simple observation that Douglas Hofstadter made in Godel, Escher, Bach -- a book which definitely does not use "emergent" as a synonym for "magical":
In a game of Go, once there are two separate open spaces -- "eyes" -- in the middle of a connected group of stones, that group becomes invincible (because the opponent can't fill both holes with one move). There's no official rule in Go that says "Patterns with two eyes can't be captured", the rule just sa... (read more)