Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Via Sommarive 18, Povo, TN 38123, Italy.
Department of Physics and Astronomy 'Galileo Galilei', University of Padua, Padova, Veneto, Italy.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2022 Jul 11;380(2227):20200410. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0410. Epub 2022 May 23.
When a large number of similar entities interact among each other and with their environment at a low scale, unexpected outcomes at higher spatio-temporal scales might spontaneously arise. This non-trivial phenomenon, known as emergence, characterizes a broad range of distinct complex systems-from physical to biological and social-and is often related to collective behaviour. It is ubiquitous, from non-living entities such as oscillators that under specific conditions synchronize, to living ones, such as birds flocking or fish schooling. Despite the ample phenomenological evidence of the existence of systems' emergent properties, central theoretical questions to the study of emergence remain unanswered, such as the lack of a widely accepted, rigorous definition of the phenomenon or the identification of the essential physical conditions that favour emergence. We offer here a general overview of the phenomenon of emergence and sketch current and future challenges on the topic. Our short review also serves as an introduction to the theme issue , where we provide a synthesis of the contents tackled in the issue and outline how they relate to these challenges, spanning from current advances in our understanding on the origin of life to the large-scale propagation of infectious diseases. This article is part of the theme issue 'Emergent phenomena in complex physical and socio-technical systems: from cells to societies'.
当大量相似实体在低尺度上相互作用并与环境相互作用时，在更高的时空尺度上可能会自发出现意想不到的结果。这种非平凡的现象，称为涌现，是广泛的不同复杂系统的特征-从物理到生物和社会，并且通常与集体行为有关。它无处不在，从非生命实体，例如在特定条件下同步的振荡器，到生命实体，例如鸟类群集或鱼类群游。尽管有大量的现象学证据表明系统具有涌现特性，但对涌现现象的研究仍存在一些悬而未决的核心理论问题，例如缺乏广泛接受的、严格的现象定义，或确定有利于涌现的基本物理条件。在这里，我们提供了涌现现象的概述，并勾勒了当前和未来的挑战。我们的简短回顾也是对主题问题的介绍，我们在其中综合了该问题所涉及的内容，并概述了它们如何与这些挑战相关联，涵盖了从生命起源的理解的当前进展到传染病的大规模传播。本文是主题问题“复杂物理和社会技术系统中的涌现现象：从细胞到社会”的一部分。
