Complex systems have emergent properties – that is, the system has properties that are NOT part of the sub-components. (from email from SystemThinker.com)
- How do some animals arrange themselves into intricate, complex organizations without anyone directing the process?
- How can musical notes, none of which played individually provokes a very distinct reaction, inspire us to dance or cry when played in a series?
- How is it that a group of participants, having cooperated on a project, can wind up surprised to discover in the resulting product of their work qualities that none of them ever imagined or can even explain?
- How does a human brain, comprised of neurons that lack consciousness, relate to a human mind that is conscious?
The upshot: We need to restrain our urge to exert undue control, which stifles and counter-intuitively sabotages vulnerable developing processes.
